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THE 


LIFE  AND   GENIUS 


OF 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE 


BY 

FRANK  PRESTON  STEARNS 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  REAL  AND  IDEAL  IN  LITERATURE,"   "LIFE  OF 
TINTORETTO,"  "LIFE  OF  BISMARCK,"  "TRUE  REPUBLI 
CANISM,"  "  CAMBRIDGE  SKETCHES,"  ETC. 


PHILADELPHIA  &  LONDON 

].  B.  LIPPINCOTT    COMPANY 

1906 


•' 


COPYRIGHT,    1906 

BY  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 
Published  September,  1906 


INSCRIBED 

TO 
EMILIA  MACIEL  STEARNS 


161  5 


"In  the  elder  days  of  art 

Builders  wrought  with  greatest  care 
Each  minute  and  unseen  part, — 
For  the  gods  see  everywhere. ' ' 

— Longfellow 

'•'  Oh,  happy  dreams  of  such  a  soul  have  I, 
And  softly  to  myself  of  him  I  sing, 
Whose  seraph  pride  all  pride  doth  overwing ; 
Who  stoops  to  greatness,  matches  low  with  high, 
And  as  in  grand  equalities  of  sky, 

Stands  level  with  the  beggar  and  the  king." 

—  Wasson 


P  r  e  f  a  c  e 


THE  simple  events  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's 
life  have  long  been  before  the  public.  From 
1835  onward  they  may  easily  be  traced  in  the 
various  Note-books,  which  have  been  edited 
from  his  diary,  and  previous  to  that  time  we 
are  indebted  for  them  chiefly  to  the  recollections 
of  his  two  faithful  friends,  Horatio  Bridge  and 
Elizabeth  Peabody.  These  were  first  system- 
atised  and  published  by  George  P.  Lathrop  in 
1872,  but  a  more  complete  and  authoritative 
biography  was  issued  by  Julian  Hawthorne 
twelve  years  later,  in  which,  however,  the  writer 
has  modestly  refrained  from  expressing  an  opin 
ion  as  to  the  quality  of  his  father's  genius,  or 
from  attempting  any  critical  examination  of  his 
father's  literary  work.  It  is  in  order  to  supply 
in  some  measure  this  deficiency,  that  the  present 
volume  has  been  written.  At  the  same  time, 
I  trust  to  have  given  credit  where  it  was  due 
to  my  predecessors,  in  the  good  work  of  making 
known  the  true  character  of  so  rare  a  genius 
and  so  exceptional  a  personality. 

The   publication   of   Horatio    Bridge's   mem- 

5 


PREFACE 

oirs  and  of  Elizabeth  Manning's  account  of  the 
boyhood  of  Hawthorne  have  placed  before  the 
world  much  that  is  new  and  valuable  concern 
ing  the  earlier  portion  of  Hawthorne's  life,  of 
which  previous  biographers  could  not  very 
well  reap  the  advantage.  I  have  made  thorough 
researches  in  regard  to  Hawthorne's  American 
ancestry,  but  have  been  able  to  find  no  ground 
for  the  statements  of  Conway  and  Lathrop, 
that  William  Hathorne,  their  first  ancestor 
on  this  side  of  the  ocean,  was  directly  con 
nected  with  the  Quaker  persecution.  Some 
other  mistakes,  like  Hawthorne's  supposed  con 
nection  with  the  duel  between  Cilley  and 
Graves,  have  also  been  corrected. 

F.  P.  S. 


Contents 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  SALEM  AND  THE  HATHORNES  :   1630-1800  ...  n 

II.   BOYHOOD  OF   HAWTHORNE:   1804-1821    35 

III.  BOWDOIN  COLLEGE:  1821-1825 60    V 

IV.  LITTLE  MISERY  :   1825-1835 78 

V.  Eos  AND  EROS  :  1835-1839 104 

VI.    PEGASUS  AT  THE  CART  :  1839-1841 125 

VII.  HAWTHORNE  AS  A  SOCIALIST:    1841-1842...  139  > 

VIII.  CONCORD  AND  THE  OLD  MANSE  :  1842-1845.  157 

IX.  "  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE":   1845  •••  I7^ 

X.  FROM  CONCORD  TO  LENOX:  1845-1849 202 

XI.  PEGASUS  is  FREE  :  1850-1852 229 

XII.  THE   LIVERPOOL    CONSULATE  :   1852-1854  .  .  .  255 

XIII.  HAWTHORNE    IN    ENGLAND  :   1854-1858 276 

XIV.  ITALY 307 

XV.  HAWTHORNE  AS  ART  CRITIC  :   1858 328 

XVI.  "THE  MARBLE  FAUN":   1859-1860 348 

XVII.  HOMEWARD  BOUND  :  1860-1862 376 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XVIII.  IMMORTALITY 403 

PORTRAITS   OF  HAWTHORNE 433 

EDITIONS     OF     HAWTHORNE'S      BOOKS     PUB 
LISHED  UNDER  His    OWN  DIRECTION  .    436 

MRS.  EMERSON  AND  MRS.  HAWTHORNE  ....    438 
APPENDICES 445 


List   of  Illustrations 


PAGE 

PORTRAIT    OF    HAWTHORNE,    BY    FRANCES    OSBORNE 
IN    1893 Frontispiece 

HAWTHORNE'S   BIRTHPLACE 36 

HORATIO  BRIDGE,  FROM  THE  PORTRAIT  BY  EASTMAN 

JOHNSON   64 

HAWTHORNE,  FROM  THE   PORTRAIT  BY  CHARLES    OS- 
GOOD  IN  1840 134 

THE  OLD  MANSE,  RESIDENCE  OF  DR.  RIPLEY 156 

THE  CUSTOM  HOUSE,  SALEM,  MASS 204 

THE  WAYSIDE 256 

GUIDO  RENI'S  PORTRAIT  OF  BEATRICE  CENCI 338 

STATUE  OF  PRAXITELES'  RESTING  FAUN 364 

TORRE  MEDIAVALLE  DELLA  SCIMMIA  (HILDA'S  TOWER) 

IN  ROME 375 


The  Life  and  Genius  of 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne 


CHAPTER  I 
SALEM  AND  THE  HATHORNES  :  1630-1800 

THE  three  earliest  settlements  on  the  New 
England  coast  were  Plymouth,  Boston,  and 
Salem;  but  Boston  soon  proved  its  superior 
advantages  to  the  two  others,  not  only  from  its 
more  capacious  harbor,  but  also  from  the  con 
venient  waterway  which  the  Charles  River 
afforded  to  the  interior  of  the  Colony.  We  find 
that  a  number  of  English  families,  and  among 
them  the  ancestors  of  Gen.  Joseph  Warren  and 
Wendell  Phillips,  who  crossed  the  ocean  in 
1640  in  the  "good  ship  Arbella,"  soon  after 
ward  migrated  to  Watertown  on  Charles  River 
for  the  sake  of  the  excellent  farming  lands 
which  they  found  there.  Salem,  however, 
maintained  its  ascendency  over  Plymouth  and 
other  neighboring  harbors  on  the  coast,  and 
soon  grew  to  be  the  second  city  of  importance 
in  the  Colony  during  the  eighteenth  century, 
when  the  only  sources  of  wealth  were  fishing, 
shipbuilding,  and  commerce.  Salem  flourished 
remarkably.  Its  leading  citizens  became  wealthy 

ii 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

and  developed  a  social  aristocracy  as  culti 
vated,  as  well  educated,  and,  it  may  also  be 
added,  as  fastidious  as  that  of  Boston  itself. 
In  this  respect  it  differed  widely  from  the  other 
small  cities  of  New  England,  and  the  exclu- 
siveness  of  its  first  families  was  more  strongly 
marked  on  account  of  the  limited  size  of  the 
place.  Thus  it  continued  down  to  the  middle 
of  the  last  century,  when  railroads  and  the 
tendency  to  centralization  began  to  draw  away 
its  financial  prosperity,  and  left  the  city  to 
small  manufactures  and  its  traditional  respect 
ability. 

The  finest  examples  of  American  eighteenth 
century  architecture  are  supposed  to  exist  in 
and  about  the  city  of  Salem,  and  they  have  the 
advantage,  which  American  architecture  lacks 
so  painfully  at  the  present  time,  of  possessing  a 
definite  style  and  character — edifices  which 
are  not  of  a  single  type,  like  most  of  the  houses 
in  Fifth  Avenue,  but  which,  while  differing  in 
many  respects,  have  a  certain  general  resem 
blance,  that  places  them  all  in  the  same  cate 
gory.  The  small  old  country  churches  of  Essex 
County  are  not  distinguished  for  fine  carving  or 
other  ornamentation,  and  still  less  by  the  costli 
ness  of  their  material,  for  they  are  mostly  built 
of  white  pine,  but  they  have  an  indefinable 
air  of  pleasantness  about  them,  as  if  they  graced 
the  ground  they  stand  on,  and  their  steeples 
seem  to  float  in  the  air  above  us.  If  we  enter 
them  on  a  Sunday  forenoon — for  on  week-days 
they  are  like  a  sheepfold  without  its  occupants — 

12 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

we  meet  with  much  the  same  kind  of  pleasant 
ness  in  the  assemblage  there.  We  do  not  find 
the  deep  religious  twilight  of  past  ages,  or  the 
noonday  glare  of  a  fashionable  synagogue,  but 
a  neatly  attired  congregation  of  weather-beaten 
farmers  and  mariners,  and  their  sensible  looking 
wives,  with  something  of  the  original  Puritan 
hardness  in  their  faces,  much  ameliorated  by 
the  liberalism  and  free  thinking  of  the  past 
fifty  years.  Among  them  too  you  will  see  some 
remarkably  pretty  young  women;  and  young 
men  like  those  who  dug  the  trenches  on 
Breed's  Hill  in  the  afternoon  of  June  16,  1775. 
There  may  be  veterans  in  the  audience  who 
helped  Grant  to  go  to  Richmond.  Withal  there 
is  much  of  the  spirit  of  the  early  Christians 
among  them,  and  virtue  enough  to  save  their 
country  in  any  emergency. 

These  old  churches  have  mostly  disappeared 
from  Salem  city  and  have  been  replaced  by  more 
aristocratic  edifices,  whose  square  or  octagonal 
towers  are  typical  of  their  leading  parishioners, 
—a  dignified  class,  if  somewhat  haughty  and 
reserved;  but  they  too  will  soon  belong  to  the 
past,  drawn  off  to  the  great  social  centres  in 
and  about  Boston.  In  the  midst  of  Salem  there 
is  a  triangular  common,  "  with  its  never-failing 
elms,"  where  the  boys  large  and  small  formerly 
played  cricket — married  men  too — as  they  do 
still  on  the  village  greens  of  good  old  England, 
and  around  this  enclosure  the  successful  mer 
chants  and  navigators  of  the  city  built  their 
mansion  houses;  not  half  houses  like  those  in 

13 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

the  larger  cities,  but  with  spacious  halls  and 
rooms  on  either  side  going  up  three  stories. 
It  is  in  the  gracefully  ornamented  doorways  and 
the  delicate  interior  wood-work,  the  carving  of 
wainscots,  mantels  and  cornices,  the  skilful 
adaptations  of  classic  forms  to  a  soft  and  delicate 
material  that  the  charm  of  this  architecture 
chiefly  consists, — especially  in  the  staircases, 
with  their  carved  spiral  posts  and  slender 
railings,  rising  upward  in  the  centre  of  the 
front  hall,  and  turning  right  and  left  on  the 
story  above.  It  is  said  that  after  the  year 
eighteen  hundred  the  quality  of  this  decoration 
sensibly  declined;  it  was  soon  replaced  by  more 
prosaic  forms,  and  now  the  tools  no  longer  exist 
that  can  make  it.  Sir  Christopher  Wren  and 
Inigo  Jones  would  have  admired  it.  America, 
excepting  in  New  York  City,  escaped  the  false 
rococo  taste  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  Salem  sea-captains  of  old  times  were 
among  the  boldest  of  our  early  navigators; 
sailing  among  the  pirates  of  the  Persian  Gulf 
and  trading  with  the  cannibals  of  Polynesia, 
and  the  trophies  which  they  brought  home  from 
those  strange  regions,  savage  implements  of 
war  and  domestic  use,  clubs,  spears,  boomerangs, 
various  cooking  utensils,  all  carved  with  infinite 
pains  from  stone,  ebony  and  iron- wood,  cloth 
from  the  bark  of  the  tapa  tree,  are  now  de 
posited  in  the  Peabody  Academy,  where  they 
form  one  of  the  largest  collections  of  the  kind 
extant.  Even  more  interesting  is  the  sword  of 
a  sword-fish,  pierced  through  the  oak  planking 

14 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

of  a  Salem  vessel  for  six  inches  or  more.  No 
human  force  could  do  that  even  with  a  spear  of 
the  sharpest  steel.  Was  the  sword-fish  roused 
to  anger  when  the  ship  came  upon  him  sleeping 
in  the  water;  or  did  he  mistake  it  for  a  strange 
species  of  whale  ? 

There  is  a  court-house  on  Federal  Street, 
built  in  Webster's  time,  of  hard  cold  granite 
in  the  Grecian  fashion  of  the  day,  not  of  the 
white  translucent  marble  with  which  the  Greeks 
would  have  built  it.  Is  it  the  court-house  wThere 
Webster  made  his  celebrated  argument  in  the 
White  murder  case,  or  was  that  court-house 
torn  down  and  a  plough  run  through  the  ground 
where  it  stood,  as  Webster  affirmed  that  it  ought 
to  be?  Salem  people  were  curiously  reticent 
in  regard  to  that  trial,  and  fashionable  society 
there  did  not  like  Webster  the  better  for  having 
the  two  Knapps  convicted. 

Much  more  valuable  than  such  associations 
is  William  Hunt's  full-length  portrait  of  Chief 
Justice  Shaw,  which  hangs  over  the  judge's 
bench  in  the  front  court-room.  "When  I  look 
at  your  honor  I  see  that  you  are  homely,  but 
when  I  think  of  you  I  know  that  you  are  great. " 
It  is  this  combination  of  an  unprepossessing 
physique  with  rare  dignity  of  character  which 
Hunt  has  represented  in  what  many  consider 
the  best  of  American  portraits.  It  is  perhaps 
too  much  in  the  sketchy  style  of  Velasquez, 
but  admirable  for  all  that. 

Time  has  dealt  kindly  with  Salem,  in  effacing 
all  memorials  of  the  witchcraft  persecution, 

15 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

except  a  picturesque  old  house  at  the  corner  of 
North  and  Essex  Streets,  where  there  are  said 
to  have  been  preliminary  examinations  for 
witchcraft, — a  matter  which  concerns  us  now 
but  slightly.  The  youthful  associations  of  a 
genius  are  valuable  to  us  on  account  of  the 
influence  which  they  may  be  supposed  to  have 
had  on  his  early  life,  but  associations  which 
have  no  determining  consequences  may  as  well 
be  neglected.  The  hill  where  those  poor  martyrs 
to  superstition  were  executed  may  be  easily 
seen  on  the  left  of  the  city,  as  you  roll  in  on  the 
train  from  Boston.  It  is  part  of  a  ridge  which 
rises  between  the  Concord  and  Charles  Rivers 
and  extends  to  Cape  Ann,  where  it  dives  into 
the  ocean,  to  reappear  again  like  a  school  of 
krakens,  or  other  marine  monsters,  in  the  Isles 
of  Shoals. 

New  England  has  not  the  fertile  soil  of  many 
sections  of  the  United  States,  and  its  racking 
climate  is  proverbial,  but  it  is  blessed  with  the 
two  decided  advantages  of  pure  water  and  fine 
scenery.  There  is  no  more  beautiful  section 
of  its  coast  than  that  between  Salem  Harbor 
and  Salisbury  Beach,  long  stretches  of  smooth 
sand  alternating  with  bold  rocky  promontories. 
A  summer  drive  from  Swampscott  to  Marble- 
head  reminds  one  even  of  the  Bay  of  Naples 
(without  Vesuvius) ,  and  the  wilder  coast  of  Cape 
Ann,  with  its  dark  pines,  red-roofed  cottages, 
and  sparkling  surf,  is  quite  as  delightful.  Wil 
liam  Hunt  went  there  in  the  last  sad  years  of 
his  life  to  paint  "sunshine,"  as  he  said;  and 

16 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Whittier   has   given   us   poetic   touches   of   the 
inland  scenery  in  elevated  verse: 

"Fleecy  clouds  casting  their  shadows 
Over  uplands  and  meadows; 
And  country  roads  winding  as  roads  will, 
Here  to   a  ferry,   there  to  a  mill." 

Poets  arise  where  there  is  poetic  nourish 
ment,  internal  and  external,  for  them  to  feed  on ; 
and  it  is  not  surprising  that  a  Whittier  and  a 
Hawthorne  should  have  been  evolved  from  the 
environment  in  which  they  grew  to  manhood. 

It  is  a  common  saying  with  old  Boston  families 
that  their  ancestors  came  to  America  in  the 
"Arbella"  with  Governor  Winthrop,  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  there  were  at  least  fifteen  vessels 
that  brought  colonists  to  Massachusetts  in  1630, 
and  I  cannot  discover  that  any  lists  of  their 
passengers  have  been  preserved.  The  statement 
that  certain  persons  came  over  at  the  same  time 
with  Governor  Winthrop  might  soon  become  a 
tradition  that  they  came  in  the  same  ship  with 
him;  but  all  that  we  know  certainly  is  that 
Governor  Winthrop  landed  about  the  middle 
of  June,  1630,  and  that  his  son  arrived  two 
weeks  later  in  the  "Talbot, "  and  was  drowned 
July  2,  while  attempting  to  cross  one  of  the 
tide  rivers  at  Salem.  Who  arrived  in  the  thirteen 
other  vessels  that  year  we  know  not.  Ten  years 
later  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall  emigrated  to  Bos 
ton  with  the  Phillips  and  Warren  families  in 
the  "Arbella"  (or  "Arabella"),  and  there  is  no 
telling  how  much  longer  she  sailed  the  ocean. 

Hawthorne  himself  states  that  his  ancestors. 
*  17 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

came  from  Wig  Castle  in  Wigton  in  Warwick 
shire,*  but  no  such  castle  has  been  discovered, 
and  the  only  Wigton  in  England  appears  to  be 
located  in  Cumberland. t  He  does  not  tell  us 
where  he  obtained  this  information,  and  it 
certainly  could  not  have  been  from  authentic 
documents, — more  likely  from  conversation  with 
an  English  traveller.  Hawthorne  never  troubled 
himself  much  concerning  his  ancestry,  English 
or  American;  while  he  was  consul  at  Liverpool, 
he  had  exceptional  advantages  for  investigating 
the  subject,  but  whatever  attempt  he  made 
there  resulted  in  nothing.  It  is  only  recently 
that  Mr.  Henry  F.  Waters,  who  spent  fifteen 
years  in  England  searching  out  the  records  of 
old  New  England  families,  succeeded  in  dis 
covering  the  connecting  link  between  the  first 
American  Hawthornes  and  their  relatives  in 
the  old  country.  It  was  a  bill  of  exchange  for 
one  hundred  pounds  drawn  by  William  Ha- 
thorne,  of  Salem,  payable  to  Robert  Hathorne 
in  London,  and  dated  October  19,  1651,  which 
first  gave  Mr.  Waters  the  clue  to  his  discovery. 
Robert  not  only  accepted  his  brother's  draft, 
but  wrote  him  this  simple  and  business-like  but 
truly  affectionate  epistle  in  return: 

"GooD  BROTHER:     Remember    my    love    to   my  sister, 
my  brother  John   and  sister,   my  brother  Davenport  and 
sister  and  the  rest  of  our  friends. 
' '  In  haste  I  rest 

' '  Your  loving  brother, 
"From  Bray  this  i  April,  1653.     ROBERT  HATHORNE." 

*  Diary,  August  22,   1837. 
fLathrop's  "Study  of  Hawthorne,"  46. 
18 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

From  this  it  appears  that  Major  William 
Hathorne  not  only  had  a  brother  John,  who 
established  himself  in  Lynn,  but  a  sister  Eliza 
beth,  who  married  Richard  Davenport,  of 
Salem.  Concerning  Robert  Hathorne  we  only 
know  further  that  he  died  in  1689;  but  in  the 
probate  records  of  Berkshire,  England,  there 
is  a  will  proved  May  2,  1651,  of  William  Ha 
thorne,  of  Binfield,  who  left  all  his  lands,  build 
ings  and  tenements  in  that  county  to  his  son 
Robert,  on  condition  that  Robert  should  pay 
to  his  father's  eldest  son,  William,  one  hundred 
pounds,  and  to  his  son  John  twenty  pounds 
sterling.  He  also  left  to  another  son,  Edmund, 
thirty  acres  of  land  in  Bray,  and  there  are  other 
legacies;  but  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the 
hundred  pounds  mentioned  in  this  will  is  the 
same  that  Major  William  Hathorne  drew  for 
five  months  later,  and  that  we  have  identi 
fied  here  the  last  English  ancestor  of  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne.  His  wife's  given  name  was  Sarah, 
but  her  maiden  name  still  remains  unknown. 
The  family  resided  chiefly  at  Binfield,  on  the 
borders  of  Windsor  Park,  and  evidently  were 
in  comfortable  circumstances  at  that  time. 
From  William  Hathorne,  senior,  their  gene 
alogy  has  been  traced  back  to  John  Hathorne 
(spelled  at  that  time  Hothorne),  who  died  in 
1520,  but  little  is  known  of  their  affairs,  or 
how  they  sustained  themselves  during  the 
strenuous  vicissitudes  of  the  Reformation.* 


*  "  Hawthorne  Centenary  at  Salem,"  81. 
19 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Emmerton  and  Waters*  state  that  William 
Hathorne  came  to  Massachusetts  Bay  in  1630, 
and  this  is  probable  enough,  though  by  no 
means  certain,  for  they  give  no  authority  for 
it.  We  first  hear  of  him  definitely  as  a  free 
holder  in  the  settlement  of  Dorchester  in  1634, 
but  his  name  is  not  on  the  list  of  the  first  twenty- 
four  Dorchester  citizens,  dated  October  19, 
1630.  All  accounts  agree  that  he  moved  to 
Salem  in  1636,  or  the  year  following,  and  Na 
thaniel  Hawthorne  believed  that  he  came  to 
America  at  that  time.  Upham,  the  historian  of 
Salem  witchcraft,  who  has  made  the  most 
thorough  researches  in  the  archives  of  old  Salem 
families,  says  of  William  Hathorne: 

"William  Hathorne  appears  on  the  church 
records  as  early  as  1636.  He  died  in  June,  1681, 
seventy-four  years  of  age.  No  one  in  our  annals 
fills  a  larger  space.  As  soldier,  commanding 
important  and  difficult  expeditions,  as  counsel 
in  cases  before  the  courts,  as  judge  on  the  bench, 
and  innumerable  other  positions  requiring  talent 
and  intelligence,  he  was  constantly  called  to 
serve  the  public.  He  was  distinguished  as  a 
public  speaker,  and  is  the  only  person,  I  believe, 
of  that  period,  whose  reputation  as  an  orator 
has  come  down  to  us.  He  was  an  Assistant, 
that  is,  in  the  upper  branch  of  the  Legislature, 
seventeen  years.  He  was  a  deputy  twenty 
years.  When  the  deputies,  who  before  sat 
with  the  assistants,  were  separated  into  a  distinct 
body,  and  the  House  of  Representatives  thus 

*  "English  Records  about  New  England  Families. " 
20 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

came  into  existence,  in  1644,  Hathorne  was 
their  first  Speaker.  He  occupied  the  chair, 
with  intermediate  services  on  the  floor  from 
time  to  time,  until  raised  to  the  other  House. 
He  was  an  inhabitant  of  Salem  Village,  having 
his  farm  there,  and  a  dwelling-house,  in  which 
he  resided  when  his  legislative,  military,  and 
other  official  duties  permitted.  His  son  John, 
who  succeeded  him  in  all  his  public  honors, 
also  lived  on  his  own  farm  in  the  village  a  great 
part  of  the  time.  "* 

Evidently  he  was  the  most  important  person 
in  the  colony,  next  to  Governor  Winthrop,  and 
unequalled  by  any  of  his  descendants,  except 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  and  by  him  in  a  wholly 
different  manner;  for  it  is  in  vain  that  we  seek 
for  traits  similar  to  those  of  the  great  romance 
writer  among  his  ancestors.  We  can  only  say 
that  they  both  possessed  exceptional  mental 
ability,  and  there  the  comparison  ends. 

The  attempt  has  been  made  to  connect  Wil 
liam  Hathorne  with  the  persecution  of  the 
Quakers,!  and  it  is  true  that  he  was  a  member 
of  the  Colonial  Assembly  during  the  period 
of  the  persecution;  it  is  likely  that  his  vote 
supported  the  measures  in  favor  of  it,  but  this 
is  not  absolutely  certain.  We  do  not  learn  that 
he  acted  at  any  time  in  the  capacity  of  sheriff; 
the  most  diligent  researches  in  the  archives  of 
the  State  House  at  Boston  have  failed  to  dis 
cover  any  direct  connection  on  the  part  of 

*  "Salem  Witchcraft,"  i.  99. 
t  Conway's  "  Life  of  Hawthorne,"  15. 
21 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

William  Hathorne  with  that  movement;  and 
the  best  authorities  in  regard  to  the  events  of 
that  time  make  no  mention  of  him.*  It  was  the 
clergy  who  aroused  public  opinion  and  instigated 
the  prosecutions  against  both  the  Quakers 
and  the  supposed  witches  of  Salem,  and  the 
civil  authorities  were  little  more  than  passive 
instruments  in  their  hands.  Hathorne 's  work 
was  essentially  a  legislative  one, — a  highly  im 
portant  work  in  that  wild,  unsettled  country, 
— to  adapt  English  statutes  and  legal  procedures 
to  new  and  strange  conditions.  He  was  twice 
Speaker  of  the  House  between  1660  and  1671, 
and  as  presiding  officer  he  could  exert  less  in 
fluence  on  measures  of  expediency  than  any 
other  person  present,  as  he  could  not  argue 
either  for  or  against  them.  And  yet,  after 
Charles  II.  had  interfered  in  behalf  of  the 
Quakers,  William  Hathorne  wrote  an  elaborate 
and  rather  circuitous  letter  to  the  British  Min 
istry,  arguing  for  non-intervention  in  the  affairs 
of  the  colony,  which  might  have  possessed 
greater  efficacy  if  he  had  not  signed  it  with  an 
assumed  name.t  However  strong  a  Puritan 
he  may  have  been,  William  Hathorne  evidently 
had  no  intention  of  becoming  a  martyr  to  the 
cause  of  colonial  independence.  Yet  it  may  be 
stated  in  his  favor,  and  in  that  of  the  colonists 
generally,  that  the  fault  was  not  wholly  on  one 
side,  for  the  Quakers  evidently  sought  perse 
cution,  and  would  have  it,  cost  what  it  might,  t 

*  Sewel,  Hallowell,  Ellis. 

t  J.  Hawthorne's  "Nathaniel  Hawthorne,"  i.  24. 

J  Hallowell's  "Quaker  Invasion  of  New  England.'! 

22 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Much  the  same  may  be  affirmed  of  his  son 
John,  who  had  the  singular  misfortune  to  be 
judge  in  Salem  at  the  time  of  the  witchraft 
epidemic.  The  belief  in  witchcraft  has  always 
had  its  stronghold  among  the  fogs  and  gloomy 
fiords  of  the  North.  James  I.  brought  it  with 
him  from  Scotland  to  England,  and  in  due 
course  it  was  transplanted  to  America.  Judge 
Hathorne  appears  to  have  been  at  the  top  of 
affairs  at  Salem  in  his  time,  and  it  is  more  than 
probable  that  another  in  his  place  would  have 
found  himself  obliged  to  act  as  he  did.  Law 
is,  after  all,  in  exceptional  cases  little  more  than 
a  reflex  of  public  opinion.  "The  common  law,  " 
said  Webster,  "is  common-sense,"  which 
simply  means  the  common  opinion  of  the  most 
influential  people.  Much  more  to  blame  than 
John  Hathorne  were  those  infatuated  persons 
who  deceived  themselves  into  thinking  that 
the  pains  of  rheumatism,  neuralgia,  or  some 
similar  malady  were  caused  by  the  malevolent 
influence  of  a  neighbor  against  whom  they  had 
perhaps  long  harbored  a  grudge.  They  were 
the  true  witches  and  goblins  of  that  epoch,  and 
the  only  ones,  if  any,  who  ought  to  have  been 
hanged  for  it. 

What  never  has  been  reasoned  up  cannot  be 
reasoned  down.  It  seems  incredible  in  this 
enlightened  era,  as  the  newspapers  call  it,  that 
any  woman  should  be  at  once  so  inhuman  and 
so  frivolous  as  to  swear  away  the  life  of  a  fellow- 
creature  upon  an  idle  fancy;  and  yet,  even  in 
regard  to  this,  there  were  slightly  mitigating 

23 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

conditions.  Consider  only  the  position  of  that 
handful  of  Europeans  in  this  vast  wilderness, 
as  it  then  was.  The  forests  came  down  to  the 
sea-shore,  and  brought  with  them  all  the  weird 
fancies,  terrors  and  awful  forebodings  which 
the  human  mind  could  conjure  up.  They  feared 
the  Indians,  the  wild  beasts,  and  most  of  all 
one  another,  for  society  was  not  yet  sufficiently 
organized  to  afford  that  repose  and  content 
ment  of  spirit  which  they  had  left  behind  in 
the  Old  World.  They  had  come  to  America  to 
escape  despotism,  but  they  had  brought  des 
potism  in  their  own  hearts.  They  could  escape 
from  the  Stuarts,  but  there  was  no  escape  from 
human  nature. 

It  is  likely  that  their  immediate  progenitors 
would  not  have  carried  the  witchcraft  craze  to 
such  an  extreme.  The  emigrating  Puritans 
were  a  fairly  well-educated  class  of  men  and 
women,  but  their  children  did  not  enjoy  equal 
opportunities.  The  new  continent  had  to  be 
subdued  physically  and  reorganized  before 
any  mental  growth  could  be  raised  there.  Lev 
elling  the  forest  was  a  small  matter  beside  clear 
ing  the  land  of  stumps  and  stones.  All  hands 
were  obliged  to  work  hard,  and  there  was  little 
opportunity  for  intellectual  development  or 
social  culture.  As  a  logical  consequence,  an 
era  ensued  not  unlike  the  dark  ages  of  Europe. 
But  this  was  essential  to  the  evolution  of  a 
new  type  of  man,  and  for  the  foundation  of 
American  nationality;  and  it  was  thus  that 
the  various  nationalities  of  Europe  arose  out 
of  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

24 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

The  scenes  that  took  place  in  Judge  Hathorne's 
court-room  have  never  been  equalled  since 
in  American  jurisprudence.  Powerful  forces 
came  into  play  there,  and  the  reports  that 
have  been  preserved  read  like  scenes  from 
Shakespeare.  In  the  case  of  Rebecca  Nurse, 
the  Judge  said  to  the  defendant: 

"'You  do  know  whether  you  are  guilty,  and  have 
familiarity  with  the  Devil;  and  now  when  you  are  here 
present  to  see  such  a  thing  as  these  testify, — and  a  black 
man  whispering  in  your  ear,  and  devils  about  you, — what 
do  you  say  to  it  ? ' ' 

To  which  she  replied : 

"  '  It  is  all  false.  I  am  clear.'  Whereupon  Mrs.  Pope, 
one  of  the  witnesses,  fell  into  a  grievous  fit."* 

Alas,  poor  beleaguered  soul!  And  one  may 
well  say,  "  What  imaginations  those  women  had !" 
Tituba,  the  West  Indian  Aztec  who  appears  in 
this  social-religious  explosion  as  the  chief  and 
original  incendiary, — verily  the  root  of  all 
evil, — gave  the  following  testimony: 

"Q.  'Did  you  not  pinch  Elizabeth  Hubbard  this 
morning?' 

"A.  'The  man  brought  her  to  me,  and  made  me  pinch 
her.' 

"Q.  'Why  did  you  go  to  Thomas  Putnam's  last  night 
and  hurt  his  child?' 

"A.     'They  pull  and  haul  me,  and  make  me  go. ' 

"Q.     'And  what  would  they  have  you  do?' 

"A.     'Kill  her  with  a  knife.' 

"  (Lieutenant  Fuller  and  others  said  at  this  time,  when  the 
child  saw  these  persons,  and  was  tormented  by  them,  that 
she  did  complain  of  a  knife, — that  they  would  have  her  cut 
her  head  off  with  a  knife.) 

*  Upham's  "  Salem  Witchcraft,"  ii.  64. 
25 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

" Q.  ' How  did  you  go? ' 

"A.  'We  ride  upon  sticks,  and  are  there  presently.' 

" Q.  'Do  you  go  through  the  trees  or  over  them?' 

"A.  'We  see  nothing,  but  are  there  presently.' 

"Q.  'Why  did  you  not  tell  your  master?' 

"A.  'I  was  afraid.   They  said  they  would  cut  off  my  head 

if  I  told. ' 

"Q.  'Would  you  not   have   hurt  others,  if  you  could?' 

"A.  'They    said    they  would    hurt    others,    but    they 

could  not. ' 

"  Q.  '  What  attendants  hath  Sarah  Good ? ' 

"A.  'A  yellow-bird,  and  she  would  have  given  me  one.' 

"Q.  'What  meat  did  she  give  it?' 

"A.  'It  did  suck  her  between  her  fingers.'  '.' 

This  might  serve  as  an  epilogue  to  "  Macbeth," 
and  the  wonder  is  that  an  unlettered  Indian 
should  have  had  the  wit  to  make  such  apt  and 
subtle  replies.  It  is  also  noteworthy  that  these 
strange  proceedings  took  place  after  the  ex 
pulsion  of  the  royal  governor,  and  previous  to 
the  provincial  government  of  William  III. 
If  Sir  Edmund  Andros  had  remained,  the  tragedy 
might  have  been  changed  into  a  farce. 

After  all,  it  appears  that  John  Hathorne  was 
not  a  lawyer,  for  he  describes  himself  in  his 
last  will,  dated  June  27,  1717,  as  a  merchant, 
and  it  is  quite  possible  that  his  legal  education 
was  no  better  than  that  of  the  average  English 
squire  in  Fielding's  time.  It  is  evident,  how 
ever,  from  the  testimony  given  above,  that  he 
was  a  strong  believer  in  the  supernatural,  and 
here  if  anywhere  we  find  a  relationship  between 
him  and  his  more  celebrated  descendant.  Na 
thaniel  Hawthorne  was  too  clear-sighted  to 
place  confidence  in  the  pretended  revelations 

26 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

of  trance  mediums,  and  he  was  not  in  the  least 
superstitious;  but  he  was  remarkably  fond  of 
reading  ghost  stories,  and  would  have  liked  to 
believe  them,  if  he  could  have  done  so  in  all 
sincerity.  He  sometimes  felt  as  if  he  were  a 
ghost  himself,  gliding  noiselessly  in  the  walks  of 
men,  and  wondered  that  the  sun  should  cast  a 
shadow  from  him.  However,  we  cannot  imagine 
him  as  seated  in  jurisdiction  at  a  criminal 
tribunal.  His  gentle  nature  would  have  re 
coiled  from  that,  as  it  might  from  a  serpent. 

In  the  Charter  Street  burial-ground  there  is  a 
slate  gravestone,  artistically  carved  about  its 
edges,  with  the  name,  "Col.  John  Hathorne 
Esq., "  upon  it.  It  is  somewhat  sunken  into  the 
earth,  and  leans  forward  as  if  wishing  to  hide 
the  inscription  upon  it  from  the  gaze  of  man 
kind.  The  grass  about  it  and  the  moss  upon 
the  stone  assist  in  doing  this,  although  repeat 
edly  cut  and  cleaned  away.  It  seems  as  if 
Nature  wished  to  draw  a  kind  of  veil  over  the 
memory  of  the  witch's  judge,  himself  the  sor 
rowful  victim  of  a  theocratic  oligarchy.  The 
lesson  we  learn  from  his  errors  is,  to  trust  our 
own  hearts  and  not  to  believe  too  fixedly  in 
the  doctrines  of  Church  and  State.  It  must  be 
a  dull  sensibility  that  can  look  on  this  old  slate- 
stone  without  a  feeling  of  pathos  and  a  larger 
charity  for  the  errors  of  human  nature. 

It  is  said  that  one  of  the  convicted  witches 
cursed  Judge  Hathorne, — himself  and  his  de 
scendants  forever;  but  it  is  more  than  likely 
that  they  all  cursed  him  bitterly  enough,  and 

27 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

this  curse  took  effect  in  a  very  natural  and 
direct  manner.  Every  extravagant  political 
or  social  movement  is  followed  by  a  correspond 
ing  reaction,  even  if  the  movement  be  on  the 
whole  a  salutary  one,  and  retribution  is  sure 
to  fall  in  one  shape  or  another  on  the  leaders  of 
it.  After  this  time  the  Hathornes  ceased  to  be 
conspicuous  in  Salem  affairs.  The  family  was 
not  in  favor,  and  the  avenues  of  prosperity 
were  closed  to  them,  as  commonly  happens  in 
such  cases.  Neither  does  the  family  appear  to 
have  multiplied  and  extended  itself  like  most  of 
the  old  New  England  families,  who  can  now 
count  from  a  dozen  to  twenty  branches  in 
various  places.  Of  John  Hathorne's  three  sons 
only  one  appears  to  have  left  children.  The 
name  has  wholly  disappeared  from  among 
Salem  families,  and  thus  in  a  manner  has  the 
witch's  curse  been  fulfilled. 

Joseph  Hathorne,  the  son  of  the  Judge,  was 
mostly  a  farmer,  and  that  is  all  that  we  now 
know  of  him.  His  son  Daniel,  however,  showed 
a  more  adventurous  spirit,  becoming  a  ship 
master  quite  early  in  life.  It  has  also  been  in 
timated  that  he  was  something  of  a  smuggler, 
which  was  no  great  discredit  to  him  in  a  time 
when  the  unfair  and  even  prohibitory  measures 
of  the  British  Parliament  in  regard  to  American 
commerce  made  smuggling  a  practical  necessity. 
Even  as  the  captain  of  a  trading  vessel,  how 
ever,  Daniel  Hathorne  was  not  likely  to  advance 
the  social  interests  of  his  family.  It  is  signifi 
cant  that  he  should  have  left  the  central  portion 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

of  Salem,  where  his  ancestors  had  lived,  and 
have  built  a  house  for  himself  close  to  the  city 
wharves, — a  house  well  built  and  commodious 
enough,  but  not  in  a  fashionable  location. 

But  Daniel  Hathorne  had  the  advantage 
over  fashionable  society  in  Salem,  in  being  a 
thorough  patriot.  Boston  and  Salem  were  the 
two  strongholds  of  Toryism  during  the  war  for 
Independence,  which  was  natural  enough,  as 
their  wealthy  citizens  were  in  close  mercantile 
relations  with  English  houses,  and  sent  their 
children  to  England  to  be  educated.  Daniel 
Hathorne,  however,  as  soon  as  hostilities  had 
begun,  fitted  out  his  bark  as  a  privateer,  and 
spent  the  following  six  years  in  preying  upon 
British  merchantmen.  How  successful  he  was 
in  this  line  of  business  we  have  not  been  in 
formed,  but  he  certainly  did  not  grow  rich  by  it ; 
although  he  is  credited  with  one  engagement 
with  the  enemy,  in  which  his  ship  came  off  with 
honor,  though  perhaps  not  with  a  decisive  victory. 
This  exploit  was  celebrated  in  a  rude  ballad  of  the 
time,  which  has  been  preserved  in  "  Griswold's 
Curiosities  of  American  Literature,"  and  has 
at  least  the  merit  of  plain  unvarnished  language.* 

There  is  a  miniature  portrait  of  Daniel  Ha 
thorne,  such  as  was  common  in  Copley's  time, 
still  in  the  possession  of  the  Hawthorne  family, 
and  it  represents  him  as  rather  a  bullet-headed 
man,  with  a  bright,  open,  cheery  face,  a  broad 
English  chin  and  strongly  marked  brows, — an 
excellent  physiognomy  for  a  sea-captain.  He 

*  Also  in  Lathrop's  "  Hawthorne. ". 
29 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

appears  besides  to  have  had  light  brown  or 
sandy  hair,  a  ruddy  complexion  and  bright  blue 
eyes;  but  we  cannot  determine  how  truthful 
the  miniature  may  be  in  respect  to  coloring. 
At  all  events,  he  was  of  a  very  different  appear 
ance  from  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  and  if  he 
resembled  his  grandson  in  any  external  respect, 
it  was  in  his  large  eyes  and  their  overshadowing 
brows.  He  has  not  the  look  of  a  dare-devil.  One 
might  suppose  that  he  was  a  person  of  rather 
an  obstinate  disposition,  but  it  is  always  diffi 
cult  to  draw  the  line  between  obstinacy  and 
determination. 

A  similar  miniature  of  his  son  Nathaniel, 
born  in  1775,  and  who  died  at  Surinam  in  his 
thirty-fourth  year,  gives  us  the  impression  of  a 
person  somewhat  like  his  father,  and  also  some 
what  like  his  son  Nathaniel.  He  has  a  long  face 
instead  of  a  round  one,  and  his  features  are 
more  delicate  and  refined  than  those  of  the  bold 
Daniel.  The  expression  is  gentle,  dreamy  and 
pensive,  and  unless  the  portrait  belies  him,  he 
could  not  have  been  the  stern,  domineering 
captain  that  he  has  been  represented.  He  had 
rather  a  slender  figure,  and  was  probably  much 
more  like  his  mother,  who  was  a  Miss  Phelps, 
than  the  race  of  Judge  Hathorne.  He  may  have 
been  a  reticent  man,  but  never  a  bold  one,  and 
we  find  in  him  a  new  departure.  His  face  is 
more  amiable  and  attractive  than  his  father's, 
but  not  so  strong.  In  1799  he  was  married  to 
Miss  Elizabeth  Clarke  Manning,  the  daughter 
of  Richard  Manning,  and  then  only  nineteen 

30 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

years  of  age.  She  appears  to  have  been  an  ex 
ceptionally  sensitive  and  rather  shy  young 
woman — such  as  would  be  likely  to  attract  the 
attention  of  a  chivalrous  young  mariner — but 
with  fine  traits  of  intellect  and  character. 

The  maternal  ancestry  of  a  distinguished  man 
is  quite  as  important  as  the  paternal,  but  in 
the  present  instance  it  is  much  more  difficult  to 
obtain  information  concerning  it.  The  increas 
ing  fame  of  Hawthorne  has  been  like  a  calcium- 
light,  illuminating  for  the  past  fifty  years  every 
thing  to  which  that  name  attaches,  and  leaving 
the  Manning  family  in  a  shadow  so  much  the 
deeper.  All  we  can  learn  of  them  now  is,  that 
they  were  descended  from  Richard  Manning,  of 
Dartmouth  in  Devonshire,  England,  whose  son 
Thomas  emigrated  to  Salem  with  his  widowed 
mother  in  1679,  but  afterwards  removed  to 
Ipswich,  ten  miles  to  the  north,  whence  the 
family  has  since  extended  itself  far  and  wide, — 
the  Reverend  Jacob  M.  Manning,  of  the  Old 
South  Church,  the  fearless  champion  of  practical 
anti-slaveryism,  having  been  among  them.  It 
appears  that  Thomas's  grandson  Richard  started 
in  life  as  a  blacksmith,  which  was  no  strange 
thing  in  those  primitive  times;  but,  being  a 
thrifty  and  enterprising  man,  he  lived  to  estab 
lish  a  line  of  stage-coaches  between  Salem  and 
Boston,  and  this  continued  in  the  possession  of 
his  family  until  it  was  superseded  by  the  Eastern 
Railway.  After  this  catastrophe,  Robert  Man 
ning,  the  son  of  Richard  and  brother  of  Mrs. 
Nathaniel  Hathorne,  became  noted  as  a  fruit- 
Si 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

grower  (a  business  in  which  Essex  County  people 
have  always  taken  an  active  interest),  and  was 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  Massachusetts  Horti 
cultural  Society.  The  Mannings  were  always 
respected  in  Salem,  although  they  never  came 
to  affluent  circumstances,  nor  did  they  own  a 
house  about  the  city  common.  Robert  Manning, 
Jr.,  was  Secretary  of  the  Horticultural  Society 
in  Boston  for  a  long  term  of  years,  a  pleasant, 
kindly  man,  with  an  aspect  of  general  culture. 
Hawthorne's  maternal  grandmother  was  Miriam 
Lord,  of  Ipswich,  and  his  paternal  grandmother 
was  Rachel  Phelps,  of  Salem.  His  father  was 
only  thirty-three  when  he  died  at  Surinam. 

In  regard  to  the  family  name,  there  are  at 
present  Hawthornes  and  Hathornes  in  England, 
and  although  the  two  names  may  have  been 
identical  originally,  they  have  long  since  become 
as  distinct  as  Smith  and  Smythe.  I  have  dis 
covered  only  two  instances  in  which  the  first 
William  Hathorne  wrote  his  own  name,  and  in  the 
various  documents  at  the  State  House  in  which 
it  appears  written  by  others,  it  is  variously 
spelled  Hathorn,  Hathorne,  Hawthorn,  Hay- 
thorne,  and  Harthorne, — from  which  we  can  only 
conclude  that  the  a  was  pronounced  broadly. 
It  was  not  until  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne, 
when  books  first  became  cheap  and  popular, 
that  there  was  any  decided  spelling  of  either 
proper  or  common  names.  Then  the  printers 
took  the  matter  into  their  own  hands  and  made 
witch- work  enough  of  it.  The  word  "  sovereign," 
for  instance,  which  is  derived  from  the  old 

32 


HE 

OF 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

French  souvrain,  and  which  Milton  spelled 
"sovran, "  they  tortured  into  its  present  form,— 
much  as  the  clerks  of  Massachusetts  Colony 
tortured  the  name  of  William  Hathorne.  This, 
however,  was  spelled  Hathorne  oftener  than  in 
other  ways,  and  it  was  so  spelled  in  the  two 
signatures  above  referred  to,  one  of  which  was 
attached  as  witness  to  a  deed  for  the  settlement 
of  the  boundary  between  Lynn  and  Salem,* 
and  the  other  to  a  report  of  the  commissioners 
for  the  investigation  of  the  French  vessels 
coming  to  Salem  and  Boston  in  1651,  the  two 
other  commissioners  being  Samuel  Bradstreet 
and  David  Denison.f  The  name  was  undoubt 
edly  Hathorne,  and  so  it  continued  with  one 
or  two  slight  variations  during  the  eighteenth 
century  down  to  the  time  of  Nathaniel  Ha 
thorne,  Jr.,  who  entered  and  graduated  at 
Bowdoin  College  under  that  name,  but  who 
soon  afterward  changed  it  to  Hawthorne,  for 
reasons  that  have  never  been  explained. 

All  cognomens  would  seem  to  have  been 
derived  originally  from  some  personal  peculiarity, 
although  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  trace  this 
back  to  its  source,  which  probably  lies  far  away 
in  the  Dark  Ages, — the  formative  period  of 
languages  and  of  families.  Sometimes,  how 
ever,  we  meet  with  individuals  whose  peculiari 
ties  suggest  the  origin  of  their  names:  a  tall, 
slender,  long-necked  man  named  Crane;  or  a 
timid,  retiring  student  named  Leverett;  or  an 

*  Towne  Genealogy,  i.  40. 
f  Massachusetts  Archives,  x.  171, 
3  33 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

over-confident,  supercilious  person  called  God- 
kin  In  the  name  of  Hawthorne  also  we  may 
imagine  a  curious  significance:  "When  the  may 
is  on  the  thorn,"  says  Tennyson.  The  English 
country  people  call  the  flowering  of  the  haw 
thorn  "the  may."  It  is  a  beautiful  tree  when 
in  full  bloom.  How  sweet-scented  and  delicately 
colored  are  its  blossoms!  But  it  seems  to  say 
to  us,  "Do  not  come  too  close  to  me. " 


34 


CHAPTER   II 
BOYHOOD  OF  HAWTHORNE  :   1804-1821 

SALEM  treasures  the  memory  of  Hawthorne, 
and  preserves  everything  tangible  relating  to 
him.  The  house  in  which  he  was  born,  No.  27 
Union  Street,  is  in  much  the  same  style  and 
probably  of  the  same  age  as  the  Old  Manse  at 
Concord,  but  somewhat  smaller,  with  only  a 
single  window  on  either  side  of  the  doorwray — five 
windows  in  all  on  the  front,  one  large  chimney  in 
the  centre,  and  the  roof  not  exactly  a  gambrel,  for 
the  true  gambrel  has  a  curve  first  inward  and 
then  outward,  but  something  like  it.  A  modest, 
cosy  and  rather  picturesque  dwelling,  which  if 
placed  on  a  green  knoll  with  a  few  trees  about  it 
might  become  a  subject  for  a  sketching  class. 
It  did  not  belong  to  Hawthorne's  father,  after 
all,  but  to  the  widow  of  the  bold  Daniel,  It 
was  the  cradle  of  genius,  and  is  now  a  shrine 
for  many  pilgrims.  Long  may  it  survive,  so 
that  our  grandchildren  may  gaze  upon  it. 

Here  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  first  saw  daylight 
one  hundred  years  ago  *  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  as 
if  to  make  a  protest  against  Chauvinistic  patri 
otism  ;  here  his  mother  sat  at  the  window  to 
see  her  husband's  bark  sail  out  of  the  harbor 
on  his  last  voyage  ;  and  here  she  watched  day 
after  day  for  its  return,  only  to  bring  a  life-long 

*  1804. 
35 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

sorrow  with  it.  The  life  of  a  sea-captain's  wife 
is  always  a  half -widowhood,  but  Mrs.  Hathorne 
was  left  at  twenty-eight  with  three  small  children, 
including  a  daughter,  Elizabeth,  older  than 
Nathaniel,  and  another,  Louisa,  the  youngest. 
The  shadow  of  a  heavy  misfortune  had  come 
upon  them,  and  from  this  shadow  they  never 
wholly  escaped. 

Lowell  criticised  a  letter  which  John  Brown 
wrote  concerning  his  boyhood  to  Henry  L. 
Stearns,  as  the  finest  bit  of  autobiography  of 
the  nineteenth  century.*  It  is  in  fact  almost 
the  only  literature  of  the  kind  that  we  possess. 
A  frequent  difficulty  that  parents  find  in  dealing 
with  their  children  is,  that  they  have  wholly 
forgotten  the  sensations  and  impressions  of 
their  own  childhood.  The  instructor  cannot 
place  himself  in  the  position  of  the  pupil.  A 
naturalist  will  spend  years  with  a  microscope 
studying  the  development  of  a  plant  from  the 
seed,  but  no  one  has  ever  applied  a  similar  proc 
ess  to  the  budding  of  genius  or  even  of  ordinary 
intellect.  We  have  the  autobiography  of  one  of 
the  greatest  geniuses,  written  in  the  calm  and 
stillness  of  old  age,  when  youthful  memories  come 
back  to  us  involuntarily;  yet  he  barely  lifts 
the  veil  from  his  own  childhood,  and  has  much 
more  to  say  of  external  events  and  older  people 
than  of  himself  and  his  young  companions. 
How  valuable  is  the  story  of  George  Washington 
and  his  hatchet,  hackneyed  as  it  has  become! 
What  do  we  know  of  the  boyhood  of  Franklin, 

*  North  American  Review,  April,  1860. 
36 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


o;  THE.    ~    . 
I    UNIVERSITY 

\  ':>f 

NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Webster,  Seward  and  Longfellow?  Nothing, 
or  next  to  nothing. 

Goethe  says  that  the  admirable  woman  is  she 
who,  when  her  husband  dies,  becomes  a  father 
to  his  children;  but  in  the  case  of  Hawthorne's 
mother,  this  did  not  happen  to  be  necessary. 
Her  brother,  Robert  Manning,  a  thrifty  and 
fairly  prosperous  young  man,  immediately  took 
Mrs.  Hathorne  and  her  three  children  into  his 
house  on  Herbert  Street,  and  made  it  essentially 
a  home  for  them  afterward.  To  the  fatherless  boy 
he  was  more  than  his  own  father,  away  from 
home  ten  months  of  the  year,  ever  could  have 
been;  and  though  young  Nathaniel  must  have 
missed  that  tenderness  of  feeling  which  a  man 
can  only  entertain  toward  his  own  child,  there 
was  no  lack  of  kindness  or  consideration  on 
Robert  Manning's  part,  to  either  the  boy  or 
his  sisters. 

It  was  Mrs.  Hathorne  who  chiefly  suffered 
from  this  change  of  domicile.  She  would  seem 
to  have  been  always  on  good  terms  with  her 
brother's  wife,  and  on  the  whole  they  formed  a 
remarkably  harmonious  family, — at  least  we 
hear  nothing  to  the  contrary, — but  she  was  no 
longer  mistress  of  her  own  household.  She  had 
her  daughters  to  instruct,  and  to  train  up  in 
domestic  ways,  and  she  could  be  helpful  in 
various  matters,  large  and  small ;  but  the  mental 
occupation  which  comes  from  the  oversight 
and  direction  of  household  affairs,  and  which 
might  have  served  to  divert  her  mind  from 
sorrowful  memories,  was  now  gone  from  her. 

37 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Her  widowhood  separated  her  from  the  outside 
world  and  from  all  society,  excepting  a  few  de 
voted  friends,*  so  that  under  these  conditions  it 
is  not  surprising  that  her  life  became  continually 
more  secluded  and  reserved.  It  is  probable 
that  her  temperament  was  very  similar  to  her 
son's;  but  the  impression  which  has  gone  forth, 
that  she  indulged  her  melancholy  to  an  excess, 
is  by  no  means  a  just  one.  The  circumstances 
of  her  case  should  be  taken  into  consideration. 

Rebecca  Manning  says: 

"  I  remember  aunt  Hawthorne  as  busy  about 
the  house,  attending  to  various  matters.  Her 
cooking  was  excellent,  and  she  was  noted  for  a 
certain  kind  of  sauce,  which  nobody  else  knew 
how  to  make.  We  always  enjoyed  going  to 
see  her  when  we  were  children,  for  she  took 
great  pains  to  please  us  and  to  give  us  nice 
things  to  eat.  Her  daughter  Elizabeth  resem 
bled  her  in  that  respect.  In  old  letters  and 
in  the  journal  of  another  aunt,  which  has  come 
into  our  possession,  we  read  of  her  going  about 
making  visits,  taking  drives,  and  sometimes 
going  on  a  journey.  In  later  years  she  was 
not  well,  and  I  do  not  remember  that  she  ever 
came  here,  but  her  friends  always  received  a 
cordial  welcome  when  they  visited  her. " 

This  refers  to  a  late  period  of  Madam  Ha- 
thorrie's  life,  and  if  she  absented  herself  from 
the  table,  as  Elizabeth  Peabody  states,!  there 
was  good  reason  for  it. 

*  Wide  Awake,  xxxiii.  502. 

t  Lathrop's  "Study  of  Hawthorne.'! 

38 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Hawthorne  himself  has  left  no  word  concern 
ing  his  mother,  of  favorable  or  unfavorable 
import,  but  it  seems  probable  that  he  owed  his 
genius  to  her,  if  he  can  be  said  to  have  owed  it 
to  any  of  his  ancestors.  In  after  life  he  affirmed 
that  his  sister  Elizabeth,  who  appears  to  have 
been  her  mother  over  again,  could  have  written 
as  well  as  he  did,  and  although  we  have  no  pal 
pable  evidence  of  this  —  and  the  letter  which  she 
wrote  Elizabeth  Peabody  does  not  indicate  it,— 
we  are  willing  to  take  his  word  for  it.  With 
the  shyness  and  proud  reserve  which  he  inherited 
from  his  mother,  there  also  came  that  exquisite 
refinement  and  feminine  grace  ot  style~which 
forms  the  chief~charm  of  his  writing.  The  same 
refinement  of  feeling  is  noticeable  in  the  letters 
of  other  members  of  the  Manning  family.  Where 
his  imagination  came  from,  it  would  be  useless 
to  speculate;  but  there  is  no^good  art  without 


Doctor  Nathaniel  Peabody  lived  near  the 
house  on  Herbert  Street,  and  his  daughter 
Elizabeth  (who  afterward  became  a  woman  of 
prodigious  learning)  soon  made  acquaintance 
with  the  Hathorne  children.  She  remembers 
the  boy  Nathaniel  jumping  about  his  uncle's 
yard,  and  this  is  the  first  picture  that  we  have 
of  him.  When  we  consider  what  a  beautiful  boy 
he  must  have  been,  with  his  wavy  brown  hair, 
large  wistful  eyes  and  vigorous  figure,  without 
doubt  he  was  a  pleasure  to  look  upon.  We  do  not 
hear  of  him  again  until  November  10,  1813, 
when  he  injured  his  foot  in  some  unknown 

39 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

manner  while  at  play,  and  was  made  lame  by  it 
more  or  less  for  the  three  years  succeeding. 
After  being  laid  up  for  a  month,  he  wrote  this 
pathetic  little  letter  to  his  uncle,  Robert  Man 
ning,  then  in  Maine,  which  I  have  punctuated 
properly  so  that  the  excellence  of  its  composition 
may  appeal  more  plainly  to  the  reader. 

"SALEM,  Thursday,  December,   1813. 
"DEAR  UNCLE: 

"  I  hope  you  are  well,  and  I  hope  Richard  is  too.  My  foot 
is  no  better.  Louisa  has  got  so  well  that  she  has  begun  to 
go  to  school,  but  she  did  not  go  this  forenoon  because  it 
snowed.  Mama  is  going  to  send  for  Doctor  Kitridge  to 
day,  when  William  Cross  comes  home  at  12  o'clock,  and 
maybe  he  will  do  some  good,  for  Doctor  Barstow  has  not, 
and  I  don't  know  as  Doctor  Kitridge  will.  It  is  about  4 
weeks  yesterday  since  I  have  been  to  school,  and  I  don't 
know  but  it  will  be  4  weeks  longer  before  I  go  again.  I  have 
been  out  of  the  office  two  or  three  times  and  have  set  down 
on  the  step  of  the  door,  and  once  I  hopped  out  into  the 
street.  Yesterday  I  went  out  in  the  office  and  had  4  cakes. 
Hannah  carried  me  out  once,  but  not  then.  Elizabeth  and 
Louisa  send  their  love  to  you.  I  hope  you  will  write  to 
me  soon,  but  I  have  nothing  more  to  write;  so  good-bye, 
dear  Uncle. 

"Your  affectionate  Nephew, 

"NATHANIEL  HATHORNE."* 

This  is  not  so  precocious  as  Mozart's  musical 
compositions  at  the  same  age,  but  how  could 
the  boy  Hawthorne  have  given  a  clearer  ac 
count  of  himself  and  his  situation  at  the  time, 
without  one  word  of  complaint?  It  is  worth 
noting  also  that  his  prediction  in  regard  to  Doctor 
Kitridge  proved  to  be  correct  and  even  more. 

*  Elizabeth  Manning  in  Wide  Awake,  Nov.  1891. 
40 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

It  is  evident  that  neither  of  his  doctors  treated 
him  in  a  physiological  manner.  •  Kitridge  was 
a  water-cure  physician,  and  his  method  of  treat 
ment  deserves  to  be  recorded  for  its  novelty. 
He  directed  Nathaniel  to  project  his  naked  foot 
out  of  a  sitting-room  window,  while  he  poured 
cold  water  on  it  from  the  story  above. *-  This, 
however,  does  not  appear  to  have  helped  the 
case,  and  the  infirmity  continued  so  long  that 
it  was  generally  feared  that  his  lameness  would 
be  permanent. 

Horatio  Bridge  considered  this  a  fortunate 
accident  for  Nathaniel,  since  it  prevented  him 
from  being  spoiled  by  his  female  relatives,  as 
there  is  always  danger  that  an  only  son  with 
two  or  more  sisters  will  be  spoiled.  But  it  was 
an  advantage  to  the  boy  in  a  different  manner 
from  this.  He  learned  from  it  the  lesson  of  suffer 
ing  and  endurance,  which  we  all  have  to  learn 
sooner  or  later;  and  it  compelled  him,  perhaps 
too  young,  to  seek  the  comfort  of  life  from  in 
ternal  sources.  There  were  excellent  books  in 
the  house, —  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  of  course, 
but  also  Pope's  "Iliad,"  Thomson's  "Seasons," 
the  "Spectator,"  "Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and 
the  "  Faerie  Queene,  "  and  the  time  had  now  come 
when  these  would  be  serviceable  to  him.  He 
was  not  the  only  boy  that  has  enjoyed  Shake 
speare  at  the  age  of  ten,  but  that  he  should  have 
found  interest  in  Spenser's  "Faerie  Queene  "is 
somewhat  exceptional.  Even  among  professed 
litterateurs  there  are  few  that  read  that  long 
allegory,  and  still  fewer  who  enjoy  it;  and  yet 

41 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Miss  Manning  assures  us  that  Hawthorne  would 
muse  over  it  for  hours.  Its  influence  may  be 
perceptible  in  some  of  his  shorter  stories,  but 
"Pilgrim's  Progress"  evidently  had  an  effect 
upon  him;  and  so  had  Scott's  novels,  as  we 
may  judge  from  the  first  romance  that  he  pub 
lished. 

At  the  age  of  twelve  years  and  seven  months 
he  composed  a  short  poem,  so  perfect  in  form 
and  mature  in  judgment  that  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  so  young  a  person  could  have  writ 
ten  it.  Not  so  poetic  as  it  is  philosophical,  it 
is  valuable  as  indicating  that  the  boy  had  al 
ready  formed  a  moral  axis  for  himself, — a  life 
principle  from  which  he  never  afterward  deviated ; 
and  it  is  given  herewith:* 

"  MODERATE  VIEWS. 

"With  passions  unruffled,  untainted  by  pride, 

By  reason  my  life  let  me  square; 
The  wants  of  my  nature  are  cheaply  supplied, 

And  the  rest  are  but  folly  and  care. 
How  vainly  through  infinite  trouble  and  strife, 

The    many    their    labours    employ, 
Since  all,  that  is  truly  delightful  in  life, 

Is  what  all  if  they  please  may  enjoy. 

"NATHANIEL  HATHORNE. 
"SALEM,  February  13,  1817." 

He  wrote  this  with  the  greatest  nicety,  framing 
it  in  broad  black  lines,  and  ornamenting  the 
capitals  in  a  manner  that  recalls  the  decoration 
of  John  Hathorne's  gravestone.  He  composed 

*  A  facsimile  of  the  original  can  be  found  in  Wide  Awake, 
November,  1891. 

42 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

a  number  of  poems  between  his  thirteenth  and 
seventeenth  years,  quite  as  good  as  those  of 
Longfellow  at  the  same  age  ;  but  after  he  entered 
Bowdoin  College  he  dropped  the  practice  al 
together  and  never  resumed  it,  although  one 
would  suppose  that  Lorigfellow's  example 
would  have  stimulated  him  to  better  efforts. 
Neither  does  he  appear  to  have  tried  his  hand  in 
writing  tales,  as  boys  who  have  no  thought  of 
literary  distinction  frequently  do.  During  the 
years  of  his  lameness  he  sometimes  invented 
extemporaneous  stories,  which  invariably  com 
menced  with  a  voyage  to  some  foreign  country, 
from  which  his  hero  never  returned.  This  shows 
how  continually  his  father's  fate  was  in  his 
mind,  although  he  said  nothing  of  it. 

Robert  Manning's  interest  in  the  stage-com 
pany  afforded  the  boy  fine  opportunities  for 
free  rides,  and  he  probably  also  frequented  the 
stables  ;  although  neither  as  youth  nor  as  man 
did  he  take  much  interest  in  driving  or  riding. 
He  was  more  fond  of  playing  upon  the  wharves, 
a  good  healthy  place, —  and  watching  the  great 
ships  sailing  forth  to  far-off  lands,  and  returning 
with  their  strange  cargoes, —  enough  to  stimu 
late  any  boy's  imagination,  if  he  has  it  in  him. 
It  is  likely  that  if  Nathaniel's  father  had  lived, 
he  would  also  have  followed  a  seafaring  life, 
and  would  never  have  become  useful  to  the 
world  in  the  way  that  he  did. 

Somewhere  about  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  Richard  Manning,  the  father  of  Mrs. 
Hathorne,  purchased  a  large  tract  of  land  in 

43 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Cumberland  County,  Maine,  between  Lake 
Sebago  and  the  town  of  Casco;  and  in  1813 
Robert  Manning  built  a  house  near  the  lake,  in 
the  township  of  Raymond,  and  his  brother 
Richard,  who  had  become  much  of  an  invalid, 
went  to  live  there,  partly  for  his  health  and  partly 
to  keep  an  oversight  on  the  property.  In  1817 
Mrs.  Hathorne  also  went  there,  taking  her 
children  with  her,  and  remaining,  with  some  in 
termissions  ,  until  1822.  Meanwhile  the  Mannings 
sold  some  thousands  of  acres  of  land,  although 
not,  as  we  may  suppose,  at  very  good  prices,  and 
the  name  of  Elizabeth  Hathorne  was  repeatedly 
attached  to  the  deeds  of  conveyance.  The  house 
that  Robert  built  was  the  plainest  sort  of  struc 
ture,  of  only  two  stories,  and  with  no  appearance 
of  having  been  painted;  but  the  farmers  in  the 
vicinity  criticised  it  as  "Manning's  folly," — 
exactly  why,  does  not  appear  clearly,  unless 
they  foresaw  what  actually  happened,  that  the 
house  could  be  neither  sold  nor  rented  after  the 
Mannings  had  left  it.  For  many  years,  it  served 
as  a  meeting-house, — one  could  not  call  it  a 
church, — and  now  it  has  become  a  Hawthorne 
museum,  the  town  of  Raymond  very  laudably 
keeping  it  in  repair. 

Although  none  of  the  events  in  the  early  life 
of  Hawthorne  ought  to  be  considered  positive 
misfortunes,  as  they  all  contributed  to  make 
him  what  he  was,  yet  upon  general  principles  it 
is  much  to  be  regretted  that  he  should  have 
passed  the  best  years  of  his  boyhood  in  this  out- 
of-the-way  place.  His  good  uncle  supplied  him 

44 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

with  a  boat  and  a  gun,  and  he  enjoyed  the  small 
shooting,  fishing,  sailing  and  skating  that  the 
place  afforded;  but  in  later  years  he  wrote  to 
Bridge,  "It  was  at  Sebago  that  I  learned  my 
cursed  habit  of  solitude,"  and  this  pursued  him 
through  life  like  an  evil  genius,  placing  him  con 
tinually  at  a  disadvantage  with  his  fellow-men. 
It  has  been  supposed  that  this  mode  of  life 
assisted  in  developing  his  individuality,  but  quite 
as  strong  individualities  have  been  developed  in 
the  midst  of  large  cities.  "  Speech  is  more  re 
freshing  than  light." 

When  will  parents  learn  wisdom  in  regard  to 
their  children?  A  conscientious,  tender-hearted 
boy  will  be  sent  to  a  rough  country  school,  to  be 
scoffed  at  and  maltreated  there,  before  he  is 
twelve  years  old;  while  another  of  a  coarser 
and  harder  nature  will  be  kept  at  home,  to  be 
petted  and  pampered  until  all  the  vigor  and 
manliness  are  sapped  out  of  him.  Parents  who 
prefer  to  live  in  a  modest,  humble  manner,  in 
order  that  their  children  may  have  better  ad 
vantages,  deserve  the  highest  commendation, 
but  in  this  respect  good  instruction  is  less  im 
portant  than  favorable  associations.  From 
fourteen  to  twenty-one  is  the  formative  period  of 
character,  and  the  influences  which  may  be 
brought  to  bear  on  the  growing  mind  are  of  the 
highest  importance.  Lake  Sebago  served  as  an 
excellent  gymnasium  for  young  Hawthorne,  and 
may  have  helped  to  develop  his  sense  of  the 
beautiful,  but  he  found  few  companions  there, 
and  those  not  of  the  most  suitable  kind.  He 

45 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

was  exceedingly  fond  of  skating — so  much  so 
that  when  the  ice  was  smooth  he  sometimes 
remained  on  the  lake  far  into  the  night.  This 
we  can  envy  him,  for  skating  is  the  poetry  of 
motion. 

The  captain  of  the  "Hawthorne,"  which 
plies  back  and  forth  across  the  lake  in  summer, 
regularly  points  out  to  his  passengers  the  house 
where  the  Hathornes  lived.  It  is  easily  seen 
from  the  steamer, — a  severely  plain,  unpainted 
building,  in  appearance  much  like  the  Manning 
house  on  Herbert  Street.  Nearly  in  line  with 
it  a  great  cliff -like  rock  juts  out  from  the  centre 
of  the  lake,  on  which  the  Indians  centuries  ago 
etched  and  painted  great  warlike  figures,  whose 
significance  is  now  known  to  no  one.  It  is  said 
that  Hawthorne  frequently  sailed  or  rowed  to 
Indian  Rock,  and  to  a  sort  of  grotto  there  which 
was  large  enough  for  his  boat  to  enter.  Both 
the  rock  and  the  Manning  house  are  now  diffi 
cult  of  access.  Longfellow  wrote  a  pretty  de 
scriptive  poem  of  a  voyage  on  Sebago,  and  it  is 
remarkable  how  he  has  made  use  of  every 
feature  of  the  landscape,  every  incident  of  the 
excursion,  to  fill  his  verses.  The  lake  has  much 
the  shape  of  an  hour-glass,  the  northern  and 
southern  portions  being  connected  by  a  winding 
strait,  so  crooked  that  it  requires  the  constant 
effort  of  the  pilot  to  prevent  the  little  steamer 
from  running  aground.  There  used  to  be  fine 
fishing  in  it, — large  perch,  bass,  and  a  species 
of  fresh-water  salmon  often  weighing  from  six 
to  eight  pounds. 

46 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Strangely  enough,  one  of  Hawthorne's  ac 
quaintances  on  the  shores  of  Sebago  was  a 
mulatto  boy  named  William  Symmes,  the  son 
of  a  Virginia  slave,  foisted  by  his  father 
upon  a  Maine  sea-captain  named  Britton,  who 
lived  in  the  half -wilderness  around  Raymond. 
Symmes  afterwards  became  a  sailor,  and  con 
tinued  in  that  vocation  until  the  Civil  War, 
when  he  went  to  live  in  Alexandria,  Va.  In 
1870  he  published  in  the  Portland  Transcript 
what  pretended  to  be  a  series  of  extracts  from 
a  diary  which  young  Hawthorne  had  kept  while 
at  Raymond,  and  which  was  found  there,  after 
the  departure  of  the  Manning  family,  by  a  man 
named  Small,  while  moving  a  load  of  furniture 
which  had  been  sold  to  another  party.  Small 
preserved  it  until  1864,  and  then  made  a  present 
of  it  to  Symmes. 

Doubts  have  been  cast  on  the  genuineness  of 
this  diary,  as  was  natural  enough  under  the 
circumstances;  for  the  original  manuscript  was 
never  produced  by  Symmes,  who  died  the  fol 
lowing  year,  and  no  one  knows  what  has  become 
of  it.  It  may  also  be  asked,  why  should  Small 
have  disposed  so  readily  of  this  manuscript  to 
Symmes  after  preserving  it  sedulously  for  more 
than  forty  years?  Why  did  he  not  return  it  to 
its  rightful  owner;  or,  if  he  felt  ashamed  of  his 
original  abstraction,  why  did  not  Symmes 
restore  it  to  the  Hawthorne  family  after  Haw 
thorne's  death,  when  every  newspaper  in  the 
country  was  celebrating  Hawthorne's  genius? 
It  also  might  have  occurred  to  one  of  them  that 

47 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

such  property  would  have  a  marketable  value, 
and  could  be  disposed  of  at  a  high  price  to  some 
collector  of  literary  curiosities;  but  Symmes 
did  not  even  ask  to  be  remunerated  for  the  por 
tion  that  he  contributed  to  the  Portland  Tran 
script.  Neither  did  he  harbor  the  slightest  ill 
feeling  toward  Hawthorne,  whom  he  claimed 
to  have  met  several  times  in  the  course  of  his 
wanderings, — once  at  Salem,  and  again  at 
Liverpool, — and  was  always  treated  by  him 
with  exceptional  kindness  and  civility. 

The  only  answer  that  can  be  made  to  these 
queries  is,  that  men  in  Symmes 's  position  in 
life  do  not  act  according  to  any  method  that 
can  be  previously  calculated.  In  a  case  like  the 
present,  there  could  be  no  predicting  it;  and 
it  is  possible  that  this  mulatto  valued  the  diary 
above  all  price,  as  a  souvenir  of  the  one  white 
man  who  had  ever  been  kind  and  good  to  him. 
Who  knows  what  a  heart  there  may  have  been 
in  William  Symmes? 

The  internal  evidence  of  this  diary  is  so 
strongly  in  its  favor  as  to  be  almost  conclusive. 
Lathrop,  who  made  a  special  study  of  it, 
says: 

"The  fabrication  of  the  journal  by  a  person 
possessed  of  some  literary  skill  and  familiar 
with  the  localities  mentioned,  at  dates  so  long 
ago  as  1816  to  1819,  might  not  be  an  impossible 
feat,  but  it  is  an  extremely  improbable  one." 

To  which  it  might  be  added,  that  it  could  be 
only  a  Hawthorne  that  could  accomplish  such  a 
fabrication.  Few  things  in  literature  are  more 


if  OF  THE 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

difficult  than  to  make  a  boy  talk  like  a  boy,  and 
the  tone  of  this  Sebago  journal  is  not  only  boyish, 
but  sweet  and  pleasant  to  the  ear,  such  as  we 
might  imagine  the  talk  of  the  youthful  Haw 
thorne.  Not  only  this,  but  there  is  a  gradated 
improvement  of  intelligence  in  the  course  of  it, 
— rather  too  much  so  for  entire  credibility.  It 
is  quite  possible  that  there  is  more  of  it  than 
Hawthorne  ever  wrote,  but  that  does  not  pre 
vent  us  from  having  faith  in  the  larger  portion 
of  it.  The  purity  of  its  diction,  the  nice  adap 
tation  of  each,  word  to  its  purpose,  and  the 
accuracy  of  detail  are  much  in  its  favor;  be 
sides  which,  the  personal  reflections  in  it  are 
exactly  like  Hawthorne.  The  published  portion 
of  the  diary  in  Mr.  Pickard's  book  makes  about 
fifty  rather  small  pages,  but  no  dates  are  given 
except  at  the  close,  and  that  is  August,  1818; 
and  as  Hawthorne  went  to  Sebago  for  the  first 
time  the  preceding  year,  we  may  presume  that 
this  note-book  represents  a  winter  and  summer 
vacation,  during  which  he  would  seem  to  have 
enjoyed  himself  in  a  healthy  boyish  fashion. 
We  have  only  space  for  a  few  extracts  from  this 
publication,  which  serve  both  to  exemplify 
Hawthorne's  mode  of  life  at  Raymond  and  to 
illustrate  the  preceding  statement  concerning 
the  book. 

The  first  observation  in  the  diary  is  quoted 
by  Lathrop,  and  has  a  decidedly  youthful  tone. 

"Two  kingbirds  have  built  their  nest  between  our  house 
and  the  mill-pond.  The  male  is  more  courageous  than 
any  creature  that  I  know  about.  He  seems  to  have  taken 

4  49 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

possession  of  the  territory  from  the  great  pond  to  the  small 
one,  and  goes  out  to  war  with  every  fish-hawk  that  flies  from 
one  to  the  other  over  his  dominion.  The  fish-hawks  must 
be  miserable  cowards  to  be  driven  by  such  a  speck  of  a 
bird.  I  have  not  yet  seen  one  turn  to  defend  himself. ' ' 

Kingbirds  are  the  knights-errant  of  the 
feathered  tribes.  They  never  attack  another 
bird  unless  it  is  three  times  their  own  size;  but 
when  a  few  years  older,  the  boy  Hawthorne 
would  probably  have  noticed  that  the  king 
birds'  powers  of  flight  are  so  superior  that  all 
other  birds  are  practically  at  their  mercy. 
This  fixes  the  date  of  the  entry  in  the  early 
summer  of  1817,  for  kingbirds  are  not  bellig 
erent  except  during  the  nesting  season.  Some 
what  later  in  the  year  he  writes: 

"Went  yesterday  in  a  sail-boat  on  the  Great  Pond 
with  Mr.  Peter  White,  of  Windham.  He  sailed  up  here 
from  White's  Bridge  to  see  Captain  Dingley,  and  invited 
Joseph  Dingley  and  Mr.  Ring  to  take  a  boat-ride  out  to  the 
Dingley  Islands  and  to  the  Images.  He  was  also  kind 
enough  to  say  that  I  might  go,  with  my  mother's  consent, 
which  she  gave  after  much  coaxing.  Since  the  loss  of  my 
father,  she  dreads  to  have  any  one  belonging  to  her  go  upon 
the  water.  It  is  strange  that  this  beautiful  body  of  water  is 
called  a  '  pond. '  The  geography  tells  of  many  in  Scotland 
and  Ireland,  not  near  so  large,  that  are  called  'Lakes.'" 

Notice  his  objection  to  bad  nomenclature, 
and  his  school-boy  argument  against  it.  In  his 
account  of  this  excursion  he  says  further : 

"After  we  got  ashore,  Mr.  White  allowed  me  to  fire  his 
long  gun  at  a  mark.  I  did  not  hit  the  mark,  and  am  not  sure 
that  I  saw  it  at  the  time  the  gun  went  off,  but  believe  rather 
that  I  was  watching  for  the  noise  that  I  was  about  to  make. 

50 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Mr.  Ring  said  that  with  practice  I  could  be  a  gunner,  and 
that  now,  with  a  very  heavy  charge,  he  thought  I  could  kill 
a  horse  at  eight  paces!" 

Here  or  nowhere  do  we  recognize  the  budding 
of  Hawthorne's  genius.  This  clear  introspec 
tive  analysis  is  the  foundation  of  all  true  mental 
power,  and  Hawthorne  might  have  become  a 
Platonic  philosopher,  if  he  had  not  preferred  to 
be  a  story-teller. 

These  sports  came  to  an  end  in  the  autumn 
when  he  was  sent  to  study  with  the  Reverend 
Caleb  Bradley,  a  somewhat  eccentric  graduate 
of  Harvard,  who  resided  at  Stroudwater, 
Maine,  and  with  whom  he  remained  during  the 
winter.*  He  refers  to  this  period  of  tuition  in 
the  short  story  of  "  The  Vision  of  the  Fountain, " 
and  whether  or  no  any  such  vision  appeared  to 
him,  we  can  fairly  believe  that  the  tale  was 
suggested  by  some  pretty  school-girl  who  made 
an  impression  on  him,  only  to  disappear  in  a 
tantalizing  manner.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that 
he  returned  to  his  mother  at  Raymond,  for 
Christmas ;  and  at  that  time  he  heard  a  story  of 
how  an  Otisfield  man  named  Henry  Turner  had 
killed  three  hibernating  bears  which  he  dis 
covered  in  a  cave  near  Moose  Pond,  not  a  difficult 
feat  when  one  comes  upon  them  in  that  torpid 
condition.  This  would  place  the  killing  of  the 
bears  at  about  the  first  of  December,  which 
would  be  probable  enough,  and  the  fact  itself 
has  been  substantiated  by  Samuel  Pickard. 

*S.  T.  Pickard's  "Hawthorne's  First  Diary." 
51 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

The  next  succeeding  entry  relates  to  the 
drowning  of  a  boy  while  swimming,  which 
could  only  have  happened  the  following  June. 
Mrs.  Hathorne  was  greatly  alarmed,  and  ob 
jected  to  Nathaniel's  going  in  bathing  with  the 
other  boys.  He  did  not  like  the  restriction, 
but  writes  that  he  shall  obey  his  mother. 

There  is  a  ghost  story  in  the  diary,  quite 
original,  and  told  with  an  air  of  excellent  credi 
bility;  and  also  a  short  anthropomorphic 
romance  concerning  a  badly  treated  horse,  full 
of  genuine  pathos  and  kindly  sympathy,— 
more  sympathetic,  in  fact,  than  Hawthorne's 
later  stories,  in  which  he  is  sometimes  almost 
too  reserved  and  unemotional: 

'  'Good  morning,  Mr.  Horse,  how  are  you  to-day?' 
'Good  morning,  youngster,'  said  he,  just  as  plain  as  a 
horse  can  speak,  and  then  said,  'I  am  almost  dead,  and 
I  wish  I  was  quite.  I  am  hungry,  have  had  no  breakfast 
and  stand  here  tied  by  the  head  while  they  are  grinding  the 
corn,  and  until  master  drinks  two  or  three  glasses  of  rum  at 
the  store,  and  then  drag  him  and  the  meal  up  the  Ben 
Ham  hill,  and  home,  and  am  now  so  weak  that  I  can  hardly 
stand.  Oh,  dear,  I  am  in  a  bad  way,'  and  the  old  creature 
cried, — I  almost  cried  myself. " 

The  only  difficulty  in  believing  this  diary 
to  be  genuine  is  the  question:  If  Hawthorne 
could  write  with  such  perspicuity  at  fourteen, 
why  are  there  no  evidences  of  it  during  his  col 
lege  years  ?  But  it  sometimes  happens  so. 

We  cannot  refrain  from  quoting  one  more 
extract  from  the  last  entry  in  the  Sebago  diary, 
so  beautifully  tender  and  considerate  as  it  is 

52 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

of  his  mother's  position  toward  her  only  son. 
He  had  been  invited  by  a  party  of  their  neigh 
bors  to  go  on  an  all-day  excursion,  and  though 
his  mother  grants  his  request  to  be  allowed  to  join 
them,  he  feels  the  reluctance  with  which  she 
does  so  and  he  writes: 

"She  said  'Yes, '  but  I  was  almost  sorry,  knowing  that  my 
day's  pleasure  would  cost  her  one  of  anxiety.  However,  I 
gathered  up  my  hooks  and  lines,  with  some  white  salted 
pork  for  bait,  and  with  a  fabulous  number  of  biscuit,  split 
in  the  middle,  the  insides  well  buttered,  then  skilfully 
put  together  again,  and  all  stowed  in  sister's  large  work- 
bag,  and  slung  over  my  shoulder,  I  started,  making  a  wager 
with  Enoch  White,  as  we  walked  down  to  the  boat,  as  to 
which  could  catch  the  largest  number  of  fish."* 

This  is  the  only  entry  that  is  dated  (August, 
1818),  and  as  it  was  on  this  same  occasion  that 
the  black  ducks  were  shot,  it  must  have  been  on 
one  of  the  last  days  of  August.  We  may  pre 
sume  that  Nathaniel  returned  to  his  studies  at 
Stroud water  the  following  month,  for  we  do 
not  hear  of  him  again  at  Raymond — or  in  Salem, 
either — until  March  24,  when  he  writes  to  his 
uncle,  Robert  Manning,  who  has  evidently  just 
returned  from  Raymond  to  Salem,  and  speaks  of 
expecting  to  go  to  Portland  with  a  Mr.  Linch 
for  the  day.  On  May  16,  1819,  he  writes  to  his 
uncle  Robert  again: 

"The  grass  and  trees  are  green,  the  fences  finished  and  the 
garden  planted.  Two  of  the  goats  are  on  the  island  and  the 
other  kept  for  the  milk.  I  have  shot  a  partridge  and  a  hen- 
hawk  and  caught  eighteen  large  trout  [probably  Sebago 
salmon].  I  am  sorry  that  my  uncle  intends  sending  me  to 
school  again,  for  my  mother  can  hardly  spare  me. " 

*  Appendix  A. 
53 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

From  which  it  is  easy  to  infer  that  he  had 
not  attended  school  very  regularly  of  late,  and 
Uncle  Robert  would  seem  to  have  concluded 
that  it  would  be  better  to  have  his  fine  nephew 
where  he  could  personally  supervise  his  goings 
and  comings.  Accordingly,  on  July  26  we  find 
Nathaniel  attending  school  in  Salem, — a  most 
unusual  season  for  it, — and  although  his  mother 
remained  at  Raymond  two  years  longer,  he 
was  not  permitted  to  return  there  again,  except 
possibly  for  short  periods. 

Emerson  once  pointed  out  to  me  on  Sud- 
bury  Street,  Boston,  an  extremely  old  man 
with  long  white  locks  and  the  face  of  a  devoted 
scholar,  advancing  toward  us  with  slow  and 
cautious  steps.  "That,"  said  he,  "is  Doctor 
Worcester,  the  lexicographer. "  Hawthorne's 
early  education  remains  much  of  a  mystery. 
In  1819  he  complains  in  a  letter  to  his  mother 
that  he  has  to  go  to  a  cheap  school, — a  good 
indication  that  he  did  not  intend  to  trust  to 
fortune  for  his  future  welfare;  soon  after  this 
we  hear  that  dictionary  Worcester  is  his  chief 
instructor.  He  could  not  have  found  a  more 
amiable  or  painstaking  pedagogue;  nor  is  it 
likely  that  the  fine  qualities  of  his  teacher  were 
ever  better  appreciated.  Hawthorne  himself 
says  nothing  of  this,  for  it  was  not  his  way  to 
express  admiration  for  man  or  woman,  but  we 
can  believe  that  he  felt  the  same  affection  for 
the  doctor  that  well-behaved  boys  commonly 
do  for  their  old  masters.  It  was  from  Worcester 
that  he  derived  his  excellent  knowledge  of 

54 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Latin,  the  single  study  of  which  he  was  fond; 
and  it  is  his  preference  for  words  derived  from 
the  Latin  which  gives  grace  and  flexibility  to 
Hawthorne's  style,  as  the  force  and  severity 
of  Emerson's  style  come  from  his  partiality 
for  Saxon  words.  During  his  last  year  at 
school,  Hawthorne  took  private  lessons  of  a 
Salem  lawyer,  Benjamin  Oliver,  and  perhaps 
studied  with  him  altogether  at  the  finish. 

Hawthorne's  life  had  been  so  irregular  for 
years  that  it  is  creditable  to  him  that  he 
should  have  succeeded  in  entering  college  at 
all.  We  hear  of  him  at  Sebago  in  winter  and 
at  Salem  in  July.  He  writes  to  his  Uncle  Robert 
to  look  out  for  the  shot-gun  which  he  left  in  a 
closet  at  Sebago,  and  which  has  a  rather  heavy 
charge  of  powder  in  it.  He  appears  to  have 
found  as  little  companionship  in  Salem  as  he 
did  in  that  wilderness, — the  natural  effect  of 
such  a  life.  He  may  have  been  acquainted 
with  half  the  boys  in  Salem,  but  he  did  not  make 
any  warm  friends  among  them.  His  sister 
Louisa,  who  was  a  more  vivacious  person  than 
Elizabeth,  was  his  chief  companion  and  comfort. 
Seated  at  the  window  with  her  on  summer  even 
ings,  he  elaborated  the  plan  of  an  imaginary 
society,  a  club  of  two,  called  the  "Pin  Society," 
to  which  all  fees,  assessments  and  fines  were 
paid  in  pins, — then  made  by  hand  and  much 
more  expensive  than  now.  He  constituted 
himself  its  secretary,  and  wrote  imaginary 
reports  of  its  proceedings,  in  which  Louisa  is 
frequently  fined  for  absence  from  meetings. 

55 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

We  do  not  hear  of  their  going  to  parties  or  dances 
with  other  children. 

In  August,  1820,  he  started  an  imaginary- 
newspaper  called  the  Spectator,  which  he  wrote 
himself  with  some  help  from  Louisa,  and  of 
which  there  was  only  one  copy  of  each  number. 
He  continued  this  through  five  successive  issues, 
and  we  trace  in  its  pages  the  commencement  of 
Hawthorne's  peculiar  humor, — too  quiet  and 
gentle  to  make  us  laugh,  but  with  a  penetrating 
tinge  of  pathos.  Take  for  instance  the  following: 

"There  is  no  situation  in  life  more  irksome  than  that 
of  an  editor  who  is  obliged  to  find  amusement  for  his 
Readers,  from  a  head  which  is  too  often  (as  is  the  present 
predicament  with  our  own)  filled  with  emptiness.  Since 
commencing  this  paper,  we  have  received  no  communica 
tion  of  any  kind,  so  that  the  whole  weight  of  the  business 
devolves  upon  our  own  shoulders,  a  load  far  too  great  for 
them  to  bear.  We  hope  the  Public  will  reflect  on  these 
grievances. " 

This  is  true  fiction,  and  Nathaniel  was  not 
the  first  or  the  last  editor  to  whom  the  state 
ment  has  applied.  His  difficulties  are  imagi 
nary,  but  he  realizes  what  they  might  be  in 
reality. 

In  another  number  he  says: 

"We  know  of  no  news,  either  domestic  or  foreign,  and  we 
hope  our  readers  will  excuse  our  not  inserting  any.  The 
law  which  prohibits  paying  debts  when  a  person  has  no 
money  will  apply  in  this  case." 

Then   he   makes   this   quiet   hit   against   the 
56 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

people  of  Maine  for  having  separated  themselves 
and  their  territory  from  Massachusetts: 

"By  a  gentleman  in  the  state  of  Maine,  we  learn  that  a 
famine  is  seriously  apprehended  owing  to  the  want  of  rain. 
Potatoes  could  not  be  procured  in  some  places.  When 
children  break  their  leading  strings,  and  run  away  from  their 
Parent,  (as  Maine  has  done)  they  may  expect  sometimes  to 
suffer  hunger."* 

Of  his  religious  instruction  we  hear  nothing; 
but  church-going  in  New  England  during  the 
first  forty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
wellnigh  universal,  and  it  makes  little  difference 
now  to  which  of  the  various  forms  of  Calvinistic 
worship  the  Manning  family  subscribed.  That 
young  Hawthorne  was  seriously  impressed  in 
this  way  is  evident  from  the  following  ode, 
which  he  may  have  composed  as  early  as  his 
fifteenth  year: 

"Oh,  I  have  roamed  in  rapture  wild 
Where  the  majestic  rocks  are  piled 
In  lonely,  stern,  magnificence  around 
The  troubled  ocean's  steadfast  bound; 
And  I  have  seen  the  storms  arise 
And  darkness  veil  from  mortal  eyes 
The  Heavens  that  shine  so  fair  and  bright, 
And  all  was  solemn,  silent  night. 
Then  I  have  seen  the  storm  disperse, 
And  Mercy  hush  the  whirlwind  fierce, 
And  all  my  soul  in  transport  owned 
There  is  a  God,  in  Heaven  enthroned." 

There  is  more  of  a  rhetorical  nourish  than  of 
serious  religious  feeling  in  this;  but  genuine 
piety  is  hardly  to  be  expected,  and  not  greatly 

*Wide  Awake,  xxxiii.   512. 
57 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

to  be  desired,  in  a  boy  of  that  age.  It  represents 
the  desire  to  be  religious,  and  to  express  some 
thing,  he  knows  not  what. 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne  had  already  decided 
on  his  vocation  in  life  before  he  entered  Bowdoin 
College, —  a  decision  which  he  afterwards  ad 
hered  to  with  inflexible  determination,  in  spite 
of  the  most  discouraging  obstacles.  In  a  mem 
orable  letter  to  his  mother,  written  March  13, 
1821,  he  says: 

"  I  am  quite  reconciled  to  going  to  college, 
since  I  am  to  spend  my  vacations  with  you. 
Yet  four  years  of  the  best  part  of  my  life  is  a 
great  deal  to  throw  away.  I  have  not  yet  con 
cluded  what  profession  I  shall  have.  The  being 
a  minister  is  of  course  out  of  the  question.  I 
shall  not  think  that  even  you  could  desire  me 
to  choose  so  dull  a  way  of  life.  Oh,  no,  mother, 
I  was  not  born  to  vegetate  forever  in  one  place, 
and  to  live  and  die  as  tranquil  as  —  a  puddle 
of  water.  As  to  lawyers,  there  are  so  many 
of  them  already  that  one-half  of  them  (upon 
a  moderate  calculation)  are  in  a  state  of  actual 
starvation.  A  physician,  then,  seems  to  be 
'  Hobson's  choice ' ;  but  yet  I  should  not  like 
to  live  by  the  diseases  and  infirmities  of  my 
fellow-creatures.  And  it  would  weigh  very 
hardly  on  my  conscience,  in  the  course  of  my 
practice,  if  I  should  chance  to  send  any  un 
lucky  patient  '  ad  infernum,'  which,  being 
interpreted,  is  'to  the  realms  below.'  Oh 
that  I  was  rich  enough  to  live  without  profes 
sion!  What  do  you  think  of  my  becoming  an 

58 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

author,  and  relying  for  support  upon  my  pen? 
Indeed,  I  think  the  illegibility  of  my  hand  is 
very  author-like."  * 

Such  were  the  Ides  of  March  for  Hawthorne. 
It  was  no  boyish  ambition  for  public  distinction, 
nor  a  vain  grasping  at  the  laurel  wreath,  but  a 
calmly  considered  and  clear-sighted  judgment. 

*  Conway,  24. 


CHAPTER  III 
BOWDOIN  COLLEGE:  1821-1825. 

THE  life  of  man  is  not  like  a  game  of  chess,  in 
which  the  two  players  start  upon  equal  terms  and 
can  deliberate  sufficiently  over  every  move; 
but  more  like  whist,  in  which  the  cards  we  hold 
represent  our  fortunes  at  the  beginning,  but  the 
result  of  the  game  depends  also  on  the  skill 
with  which  we  play  it.  Life  also  resembles 
whist  in  this,  that  we  are  obliged  to  follow  suit 
in  a  general  way  to  those  who  happen  to  have 
the  lead. 

Why  Hawthorne  should  have  entered  Bowdoin 
College  instead  of  Harvard  has  not  been  ex 
plained,  nor  is  it  easily  explained.  The  stand 
ard  of  scholarship  maintained  at  Harvard 
and  Yale  has  always  been  higher  than  that  at 
what  Doctor  Holmes  designated  as  the  ''fresh 
water  colleges,"  and  this  may  have  proved  an 
unfavorable  difference  to  the  mind  of  a  young 
man  who  was  not  greatly  inclined  to  his  studies ; 
but  Harvard  College  is  only  eighteen  miles  from 
Salem,  and  he  could  have  returned  to  his  home 
once  a  week  if  he  had  chosen  to  do  so,  and  this 
is  a  decided  moral  and  social  advantage  to  a 
young  man  in  those  risky  years.  If  Hawthorne 
had  entered  Harvard  in  the  next  class  to  Em 
erson,  he  could  not  well  have  escaped  the  latter's 
attention,  and  would  have  come  in  contact 

60 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

with  other  vigorous  and  stimulating  minds; 
but  it  is  of  little  use  to  speculate  on  what  might 
have  been. 

Boys  are  encouraged  to  study  for  college  by 
accounts  of  the  rare  enjoyment  of  university 
life,  but  they  commonly  find  the  first  term  of 
Freshman  year  both  dismal  and  discouraging. 
Their  class  is  a  medley  of  strangers,  their  studies 
are  a  dry  routine,  and  if  they  are  not  hazed  by 
the  Sophomores,  they  are  at  least  treated  by 
them  with  haughtiness  and  contempt.  It  is 
still  summer  when  they  arrive,  but  the  leaves 
soon  fall  from  the  trees,  and  their  spirits  fall 
with  them. 

Hawthorne  may  have  felt  this  more  acutely 
than  any  other  member  of  his  class,  and  in 
addition  to  the  prevailing  sense  of  discomfort 
he  was  seized  early  in  November  with  that  dis 
gusting  malady,  the  measles,  which  boys  usually 
go  through  with  before  they  are  old  enough  to 
realize  how  disagreeable  it  is.  It  appears  to 
have  been  a  light  attack,  however,  and  in  three 
weeks  he  was  able  to  attend  recitations  again. 
He  made  no  complaint  of  it,  only  writing  to 
his  uncle  for  ten  dollars  with  which  to  pay  the 
doctor.  He  likes  his  chum,  Mason,  of  Ports 
mouth,  and  does  not  find  his  studies  so  arduous 
as  at  Salem  before  entering.  Neither  are  the 
college  laws  so  strict  as  he  anticipated. 

In  the  following  May  he  received  the  present 
of  his  first  watch,  presumably  from  Uncle  Robert, 
and  he  writes  to  his  mother,  who  is  still  at 
Sebago,  that  he  is  mightily  pleased  with  it,  and 

61 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

that  it  enables  him  "to  cut  a  great  dash"  at 
college.  His  letters  to  his  relatives  are  not 
brilliant,  but  they  indicate  a  healthful  and  con 
tented  mind. 

We  will  now  consider  some  of  the  distin 
guished  personages  who  were  Hawthorne's 
friends  and  associates  during  these  four  years 
of  his  apprenticeship  to  actual  life;  and  there 
were  rare  characters  among  them. 

In  the  same  coach  in  which  Hawthorne  left 
Portland  for  Brunswick,  in  the  summer  of  1821, 
were  Franklin  Pierce  and  Jonathan  Cilley.* 
Two  men  seated  together  in  a  modern 
railway-carriage  will  often  become  better  ac 
quainted  in  three  hours  than  they  might  as 
next-door  neighbors  in  three  years;  and  this 
was  still  more  likely  to  happen  in  the  old  days 
of  coach  journeys,  when  the  very  tedium  of  the 
occasion  served  as  an  inducement  to  frank  and 
friendly  conversation.  Pierce  was  the  right 
man  to  bring  Hawthorne  out  of  his  hard  shell  of 
Sebago  seclusion.  He  had  already  been  one 
year  at  Bowdoin,  and  at  that  time  there  was  not 
the  same  caste  feeling  between  Sophomores  and 
Freshmen — or  at  least  very  little  of  it — that 
has  since  arisen  in  American  colleges.  He  was 
amiable  and  kindly,  and  possessed  the  rare 
gift  of  personal  magnetism.  Nature  sometimes 
endows  men  and  women  with  this  quality  in 
lieu  of  all  other  advantages,  and  such  would 
seem  to  have  been  the  case  with  Franklin  Pierce. 
He  was  not  much  above  the  average  in  intellect, 

*  Bridge's  Memoir  of  Hawthorne,  3. 
62 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

and,  as  Hawthorne  afterward  confessed,  not 
particularly  attractive  in  appearance;  with  a 
stiff  military  neck,  features  strong  but  small, 
and  opaque  gray  eyes, — a  rather  unimpressive 
face,  and  one  hardly  capable  of  a  decided  ex 
pression.  Yet  with  such  abilities  as  he  had, 
aided  by  personal  magnetism  and  the  lack  of 
conspicuous  faults,  he  became  United  States 
Senator  at  the  age  of  thirty-five,  and  President 
fifteen  years  later.  The  best  we  can  say  of  him 
is,  that  he  was  always  Hawthorne's  friend. 
From  the  first  day  that  they  met  he  became 
Hawthorne's  patron  and  protector — so  far  as 
he  may  have  required  the  latter.  There  must 
have  been  some  fine  quality  in  the  man  which 
is  not  easily  discernible  from  his  outward  acts; 
a  narrow-minded  man,  but  of  a  refined  nature. 

Jonathan  Cilley  was  an  abler  man  than  Pierce, 
and  a  bold  party-leader,  but  not  so  attractive 
personally.  He  always  remained  Hawthorne's 
friend,  but  the  latter  saw  little  of  him  and  rarely 
heard  from  him  after  they  had  graduated. 
The  one  letter  of  his  which  has  been  published 
gives  the  impression  of  an  impulsive,  rough- 
and-tumble  sort  of  person,  always  ready  to 
take  a  hand  in  whatever  might  turn  up. 

On  the  same  day,  Horatio  Bridge,  who  lived 
at  Augusta,  was  coming  down  the  Kennebec 
River  to  Brunswick.  Hawthorne  did  not  make 
his  acquaintance  until  some  weeks  later,  but 
he  proved  to  be  the  best  friend  of  them  all, 
and  Hawthorne's  most  constant  companion 
during  the  four  years  they  remained  together. 

63 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Pierce,  Cilley  and  Bridge  were  all  born  politicians, 
and  it  was  this  class  of  men  with  whom  it  would 
seem  that  Hawthorne  naturally  assimilated. 

On  the  same  day,  or  the  one  previous,  another 
boy  set  out  from  Portland  for  Brunswick,  only 
fourteen  years  old,  named  Henry  W.  Long 
fellow, — a  name  that  is  now  known  to  thousands 
who  never  heard  of  Franklin  Pierce.  Would  it 
have  made  a  difference  in  the  warp  and  woof 
of  Hawthorne's  life,  if  he  had  happened  to  ride 
that  day  in  the  same  coach  with  Longfellow? 
Who  can  tell  ?  Was  there  any  one  in  the  breadth 
of  the  land  with  whom  he  might  have  felt  an 
equal  sympathy,  with  whom  he  could  have 
matured  a  more  enduring  fellowship?  It  might 
have  been  a  friendship  like  that  of  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher,  or,  better  still,  like  that  of  Goethe 
and  Schiller, — but  it  was  not  written  in  the 
book  of  Fate.  Longfellow  also  had  tried  his 
hand  on  the  Sebago  region,  and  was  fond  of  the 
woods  and  of  a  gun;  but  he  was  too  precocious 
to  adapt  himself  easily  to  persons  of  his  own 
age,  or  even  somewhat  older.  He  had  no  sooner 
arrived  at  Bowdoin  than  he  became  the  asso 
ciate  and  favorite  of  the  professors.  In  this 
way  he  missed  altogether  the  storm-and-stress 
period  of  youthful  life,  which  is  a  useful  ex 
perience  of  its  kind;  and  if  we  notice  in  his 
poetry  a  certain  lack,  the  absence  of  a  close 
contact  with  reality, — as  if  he  looked  at  his 
subject  through  a  glass  casement, — this  may 
be  assigned  as  the  reason  for  it. 

During  the  four  years  they  went  back  and 
64 


HORATIO  BRIDGE.       FROM  THE  PORTRAIT   BY  EASTMAN  JOHNSON 


\   /'  cr 

NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

forth  to  their  instruction  together,  Hawthorne 
and  Longfellow  never  became  cordially  ac 
quainted.  They  also  belonged  to  rival  so 
cieties.  There  were  only  two  principal 
societies  at  Bowdoin,  which  continued  through 
the  college  course — the  Peucinian  and  the 
Athenaean,  and  the  difference  between  them 
might  be  described  by  the  words  " citified"  and 
"countrified,"  without  taking  either  of  those 
terms  in  an  objectionable  sense.  Pierce  was 
already  a  leading  character  in  the  Athenaean, 
and  was  soon  followed  by  Cilley,  Bridge  and 
Hawthorne.  The  Peucinian  suffered  from  the 
disadvantage  of  having  members  of  the  college 
faculty  on  its  active  list,  and  this  must  have 
given  a  rather  constrained  and  academic  char 
acter  to  its  meetings.  There  was  much  more 
of  the  true  college  spirit  and  classmate  feeling 
in  the  Athenaean. 

Horatio  Bridge  is  our  single  authority  in 
regard  to  Bowdoin  College  at  this  time,  and 
his  off-hand  sketches  of  Hawthorne,  Pierce  and 
Longfellow  are  invaluable.  Never  has  such  a 
group  of  distinguished  young  men  been  gathered 
together  at  an  American  college.  He  says  of 
Hawthorne : 

"Hawthorne  was  a  slender  lad,  having  a  massive  head, 
with  dark,  brilliant,  and  most  expressive  eyes,  heavy 
eyebrows,  and  a  profusion  of  dark  hair.  For  his  appear 
ance  at  that  time  the  inquirers  must  rely  wholly  upon  the 
testimony  of  friends;  for,  I  think,  no  portrait  of  him  as  a 
lad  is  extant.  On  one  occasion,  in  our  senior  years,  the 
class  wished  to  have  their  profiles  cut  in  silhouette  by  a 
wandering  artist  of  the  scissors,  and  interchanged  by  all 

5  65 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

the  thirty-eight.  Hawthorne  disapproved  the  proposed 
plan,  and  steadily  refused  to  go  into  the  Class  Golgotha, 
as  he  styled  the  dismal  collection.  I  joined  him  in  this 
freak,  and  so  our  places  were  left  vacant.  I  now  regret  the 
whim,  since  even  a  moderately  correct  outline  of  his 
features  as  a  youth  would,  at  this  day,  be  interesting. 

"Hawthorne's  figure  was  somewhat  singular,  owing  to 
his  carrying  his  head  a  little  on  one  side ;  but  his  walk  was 
square  and  firm,  and  his  manner  self-respecting  and  re 
served.  A  fashionable  boy  of  the  present  day  might  have 
seen  something  to  amuse  him  in  the  new  student's  ap 
pearance;  but  had  he  indicated  this  he  would  have  rued 
it,  for  Hawthorne's  clear  appreciation  of  the  social  pro 
prieties  and  his  great  physical  courage  would  have  made  it 
as  unsafe  to  treat  him  with  discourtesy  then  as  at  any 
later  time. 

"Though  quiet  and  most  amiable,  he  had  great  pluck 
and  determination.  I  remember  that  in  one  of  our  con 
vivial  meetings  we  had  the  laugh  upon  him  for  some  cause, 
an  occurrence  so  rare  that  the  bantering  was  carried  too 
far.  After  bearing  it  awhile,  Hawthorne  singled  out  the 
one  among  us  who  had  the  reputation  of  being  the  best 
pugilist,  and  in  a  few  words  quietly  told  him  that  he  would 
not  permit  the  rallying  to  go  farther.  His  bearing  was  so 
resolute,  and  there  was  so  much  of  danger  in  his  eye,  that 
no  one  afterward  alluded  to  the  offensive  subject  in  his 
presence.  "* 

Horatio  Bridge  is  a  veracious  witness,  but  we 
have  to  consider  that  he  was  nearly  ninety 
years  of  age  at  the  time  his  memoirs  were 
given  to  the  public.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine 
Hawthorne  as  a  slender  youth,  for  his  whole 
figure  was  in  keeping  with  the  structure  of  his 
head.  It  is  more  likely  that  he  had  a  spare 
figure.  Persons  of  a  lively  imagination  have 
always  been  apt  to  hold  their  heads  on  one 

*  Horatio  Bridge,  5. 
66 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

side,  but  not  commonly  while  they  are  walking. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  phrenologists  have 
supposed  that  the  organ  of  ideality  is  located 
on  the  side  of  the  head, — if  there  really  is  any 
such  organ. 

Bridge  says  of  Longfellow  precisely  what  one 
might  expect: 

"He  had  decided  personal  beauty  and  most  attractive 
manners.  He  was  frank,  courteous,  and  affable,  while 
morally  he  was  proof  against  the  temptations  that  beset 
lads  on  first  leaving  the  salutary  restraints  of  home.  He  was 
diligent,  conscientious,  and  most  attentive  to  all  his  college 
duties,  whether  in  the  recitation-room,  the  lecture-hall, 
or  the  chapel.  The  word  'student'  best  expresses  his 
literary  habit,  and  in  his  intercourse  with  all  he  was  con 
spicuously  the  gentleman." 

In  addition  to  those  already  mentioned, 
James  W.  Bradbury  of  Portland,  afterwards 
United  States  Senator,  and  the  Reverend  Dr. 
George  B.  Cheever,  the  vigorous  anti-slavery 
preacher,  were  members  of  this  class.  Three 
others,  Cilley,  Benson  and  Sawtelle,  were  after 
ward  members  of  the  United  States  House  of 
Representatives.  Surely  there  must  have  been 
quite  a  fermentation  of  youthful  intellect  at 
Bowdoin  between  1821  and  1825. 

Franklin  Pierce  was  so  deeply  interested  in 
military  affairs  that  it  was  a  pity  he  should 
not  have  had  a  West  Point  cadetship.  He  was 
captain  of  the  college  militia  company,  in  which 
Hawthorne  and  Bridge  drilled  and  marched; 
a  healthy  and  profitable  exercise,  and  better 
than  a  gymnasium,  if  rather  monotonous.  Pierce 

67 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

was  the  popular  hero  and  magnus  Apollo  of  his 
class,  as  distinguished  foot-ball  players  are  now; 
but  just  at  this  time  he  was  neglecting  his  studies 
so  badly  that  at  the  close  of  his  second  year  he 
found  himself  at  the  very  foot  of  the  rank  list. 
The  fact  became  known  through  the  college, 
and  Pierce  was  so  chagrined  that  he  concluded 
to  withdraw  from  Bowdoin  altogether,  and  it 
was  only  by  the  urgent  persuasion  of  his  friends 
that  he  was  induced  to  continue  his  course.  "  If 
I  remain,  however,"  he  said,  "you  will  witness 
a  change  in  me."  For  months  together  he 
burned  midnight  oil  in  order  to  recover  lost 
ground.  During  his  last  two  years  at  college, 
he  only  missed  two  recitations,  both  for  suffi 
cient  reasons.  His  conduct  was  unexception 
able,  he  incurred  no  deductions,  and  finally 
graduated  third  in  his  class.  It  is  an  uncommon 
character  that  can  play  fast-and-loose  with 
itself  in  this  manner.  The  boy  Franklin  had 
departed,  and  Pierce  the  man  had  taken  his 
place.*  Horatio  Bridge  gives  a  rather  more 
idealized  portrait  of  him  than  he  does  of  Haw 
thorne.  He  says: 

"In  person  Pierce  was  slender,  of  medium  height,  with 
fair  complexion  and  light  hair,  erect,  with  a  military  bear 
ing,  active,  and  always  bright  and  cheerful.  In  character 
he  was  impulsive,  not  rash ;  generous,  not  lavish ;  chivalric, 
courteous,  manly,  and  warm-hearted, — and  he  was  one  of 
the  most  popular  students  in  the  whole  college. " 

The  instruction  in  American  colleges  during 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 

*  Professor  Packard's  "History  of  Bowdoin  College." 
68 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

excellent  for  Greek,  Latin  and  mathematics, — 
always  the  groundwork  of  a  good  education, — 
but  the  modern  languages  were  indifferently 
taught  by  French  and  German  exiles,  and  other 
subjects  were  treated  still  more  indifferently. 
The  two  noble  studies  of  history  and  philosophy 
were  presented  to  the  young  aspiring  soul  in 
narrow,  prejudiced  text-books,  which  have  long 
since  been  consigned  to  that  bourn  from  which 
no  literary  work  ever  returns.  As  already 
stated,  Hawthorne's  best  study  was  Latin,  and 
in  that  he  acquired  good  proficiency;  but  he 
was  slow  in  mathematics,  as  artistic  minds 
usually  are,  and  in  his  other  studies  he  only 
exerted  himself  sufficiently  to  pass  his  exami 
nations  in  a  creditable  manner.  We  may  pre 
sume  that  he  took  the  juice  and  left  the  rind; 
which  was  the  sensible  thing  to  do.  As  might 
be  expected,  his  themes  and  forensics  were 
beautifully  written,  although  the  arguments 
in  them  were  not  always  logical;  but  it  is  sig 
nificant  that  he  never  could  be  prevailed  upon 
to  make  a  declamation.  There  have  been  sensi 
tive  men,  like  Sumner  and  George  W.  Curtis, 
who  were  not  at  all  afraid  of  the  platform,  but  they 
were  not,  like  Hawthorne,  bashful  men.  The 
college  faculty  would  seem  to  have  realized 
the  true  difficulty  in  his  case,  and  treated  him 
in  a  kindly  and  lenient  manner.  No  doubt  he 
suffered  enough  in  his  own  mind  on  account  of 
this  deficiency,  and  it  may  have  occurred  to 
him  what  difficulties  he  might  have  to  encounter 
in  after-life  by  reason  of  it.  If  a  student  at  col- 

69 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

lege  cannot  bring  himself  to  make  a  declamation, 
how  can  the  mature  man  face  an  audience  in  a 
lecture-room,  command  a  ship,  or  administer 
any  important  office?  Such  thoughts  must 
have  caused  Hawthorne  no  slight  anxiety, 
at  that  sensitive  age. 

The  out-door  sports  of  the  students  did  not 
attract  Hawthorne  greatly.  He  was  a  fast 
runner  and  a  good  leaper,  but  seemed  to  dislike 
violent  exercise.  He  much  preferred  walking 
in  the  woods  with  a  single  companion,  or  by  the 
banks  of  the  great  river  on  which  Brunswick 
is  situated.  There  were  fine  trout-brooks  in  the 
neighborhood,  and  formerly  the  woods  of  Maine 
were  traversed  by  vast  flocks  of  passenger 
pigeons,  which  with  the  large  gray  squirrels 
afforded  excellent  shooting.  How  skilful  Haw 
thorne  became  with  his  fowling-piece  we  have 
not  been  informed,  but  it  is  evident  from  pas 
sages  in  "Fanshawe"  that  he  learned  something 
of  trout-fishing;  and  on  the  whole  he  enjoyed 
advantages  at  Bowdoin  which  the  present 
student  at  Harvard  or  Oxford  might  well  envy 
him.  The  fish  we  catch  in  the  streams  and  lakes 
of  Maine  only  represent  a  portion  of  our  enjoy 
ment  there.  Horatio  Bridge  says: 

"There  was  one  favorite  spot  in  a  little  ravine,  where  a 
copious  spring  of  clear,  cold  water  gushed  out  from  the 
sandy  bank,  and  joined  the  larger  stream.  This  was  the 
Paradise  Spring,  which  deserves  much  more  than  its 
present  celebrity  for  the  absolute  purity  of  its  waters.  Of 
late  years  the  brook  has  been  better  known  as  a  favorite 
haunt  of  the  great  romance  writer,  and  it  is  now  often 
called  the  Hawthorne  Brook. 

70 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

"Another  locality,  above  the  bridge,  afforded  an  occasional 
stroll  through  the  fields  and  by  the  river.  There,  in  spring, 
we  used  to  linger  for  hours  to  watch  the  giant  pine-logs  (for 
there  were  giants  in  those  days)  from  the  far-off  forests, 
floating  by  hundreds  in  the  stream  until  they  came  to  the 
falls;  then,  balancing  for  a  moment  on  the  brink,  they 
plunged  into  the  foamy  pool  below." 

At  the  lower  end  of  the  town  there  was  an 
old  weather-beaten  cot,  where  the  railroad  track 
now  runs,  inhabited  by  a  lone  woman  nearly 
as  old  and  time-worn  as  the  dwelling  itself. 
She  pretended  to  be  a  fortune-teller,  and  to  her 
Hawthorne  and  Bridge  sometimes  had  recourse, 
to  lift  the  veil  of  their  future  prospects;  which 
she  always  succeeded  in  doing  to  their  good 
entertainment.  The  old  crone  knew  her  business 
well,  especially  the  art  of  giving  sufficient  variety 
of  detail  to  the  same  old  story.  For  a  nine- 
pence  she  would  predict  a  beautiful  blond  wife 
for  Hawthorne,  and  an  equally  handsome  dark- 
complexioned  one  for  Bridge.  Riches  were  of 
course  thrown  in  by  the  handful;  and  Bridge 
remarks  that  although  these  never  came  to  pass 
they  both  happened  to  be  blessed  with  excellent 
wives.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the  handsome 
Hawthorne  and  his  tall,  elegant-looking  com 
panion  should  have  stimulated  the  old  woman's 
imagination  in  a  favorable  manner.  The  small 
coin  they  gave  her  may  have  been  the  least 
happiness  that  their  visits  brought  into  her  life. 

Close  by  the  college  grounds  there  was  a 
miserable  little  inn,  which  went  by  the  name  of 
Ward's  Tavern,  and  thither  the  more  uproar 
ious  class  of  students  consorted  at  intervals 

71 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

for  the  purpose  of  keeping  care  at  a  distance,  and 
singing,  "Landlord,  fill  your  flowing  bowls." 
Strange  to  say,  the  reserved,  thoughtful  Haw 
thorne  was  often  to  be  found  among  them.  It  does 
not  seem  quite  consistent  with  the  gravity  of 
his  customary  demeanor,  but  youth  has  its 
period  of  reckless  ebullition.  Punch-bowl 
societies  exist  in  all  our  colleges,  and  many 
who  disapprove  of  them  join  them  for  the  sake 
of  popularity.  Hawthorne  may  have  been  as 
grave  and  well-behaved  on  these  occasions  as 
he  was  customarily.  We  have  Bridge's  word 
for  this;  and  the  matter  would  hardly  be  worth 
mentioning  if  it  had  not  led  to  more  serious 
proceedings.  May  29,  1822,  President  Allen 
wrote  to  Mrs.  Hathorne  at  Salem  that  her  son 
had  been  fined  fifty  cents  for  gaming  at  cards.* 
Certainly  this  was  not  very  severe  treatment; 
and  if  the  Bowdoin  faculty,  being  on  the  spot, 
concluded  that  young  Hawthorne  had  only 
injured  his  moral  nature  fifty  cents'  worth,  I 
think  we  shall  do  well  to  agree  with  their  decision. 
At  the  same  time  Nathaniel  wrote  his  mother 
the  following  manly  letter : 

"BRUNSWICK,  May  3oth,    1822. 

"Mv  DEAR  MOTHER: — I  hope  you  have  safely  arrived  in 
Salem.  I  have  nothing  particular  to  inform  you  of,  except 
that  all  the  card-players  in  college  have  been  found  out,  and 
my  unfortunate  self  among  the  number.  One  has  been  dis 
missed  from  college,  two  suspended,  and  the  rest,  with  my- 

*  In  1864  a  Harvard  student  was  fined  three  dollars  for 
writing  on  the  woodwork  with  a  lead-pencil — erased  with 
a  sponge. 

72 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

self,  have  been  fined  fifty  cents  each.  I  believe  the 
President  intends  to  write  to  the  friends  of  all  the  de 
linquents.  Should  that  be  the  case,  you  must  show  the 
letter  to  nobody.  If  I  am  again  detected,  I  shall  have  the 
honor  of  being  suspended.  When  the  President  asked  what 
we  played  for,  I  thought  it  proper  to  inform  him  it  was  fifty 
cents,  although  it  happened  to  be  a  quart  of  wine ;  but  if  I 
had  told  him  of  that,  he  would  probably  have  fined  me  for 
having  a  blow.  There  was  no  untruth  in  the  case,  as  the 
wine  cost  fifty  cents.  I  have  not  played  at  all  this  term.  I 
have  not  drank  any  kind  of  spirits  or  wine  this  term,  and 
shall  not  till  the  last  week.  "  * 

The  clemency  with  which  the  college  authori 
ties  treated  Bridge  and  Hawthorne  is  a  plain 
indication  of  the  confidence  which  they  felt  in 
them,  and  speaks  more  highly  for  their  respec 
tive  characters  than  if  they  had  been  patterns 
of  good  behavior.  Some  of  the  others  were  not 
so  fortunate.  One  young  man,  whose  name  is 
properly  withheld  from  us,  was  expelled  from 
the  institution.  He  was  supposed  to  have  been 
the  ringleader  in  this  dubious  business,  but 
Hawthorne  manfully  resented  the  supposition 
that  any  one  could  have  influenced  him,  or  did 
influence  him,  in  this  matter.  It  is  more  likely 
that  he  was  influenced  by  the  spirit  of  investi 
gation,  and  wished  to  know  what  the  sensation 
was  like  from  personal  experience. 

''Letters  home"  from  college  are  not  com 
monly  interesting  to  the  general  public,  and 
those  which  Hawthorne  wrote  to  his  mother 
and  sisters  do  not  differ  essentially  from  such  as 
other  young  men  write  under  similar  conditions. 

*  Horatio  Bridge,  118. 
73 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

At  the  age  when  it  is  so  difficult  to  decide 
whether  we  have  become  men  or  are  still  boys, 
all  our  actions  partake  of  a  similar  uncertainty, 
and  the  result  of  what  wTe  do  and  say  is  likely 
to  be  a  rather  confused  impression.  Though 
college  students  appear  different  enough  to  one 
another,  they  all  seem  alike  to  the  outside  world. 
University  towns  always  contain  more  or 
less  cultivated  society,  and  young  Hawthorne 
might  have  been  welcome  to  the  best  of  it  if 
he  had  felt  so  inclined ;  but  he  was  as  shy  of  the 
fair  sex  as  Goldsmith's  bashful  lover.  M.  D. 
Conway,  who  knew  him,  doubts  if  he  ever  be 
came  well  acquainted  with  a  young  lady  until 
his  engagement  to  Miss  Peabody.  Considering 
this,  it  seems  as  if  Jonathan  Cilley  made  rather 
a  hazardous  wager  with  Hawthorne,  before 
leaving  Bowdoin, — a  wager  of  a  cask  of  Madeira, 
that  Hawthorne  would  become  a  married  man 
within  the  next  twelve  years.  Papers  to  that 
effect  were  duly  signed  by  the  respective  parties, 
sealed,  and  delivered  for  safe-keeping  to  Horatio 
Bridge,  who  preserved  them  faithfully  until 
the  appointed  time  arrived.  Under  ordinary 
conditions  the  chances  of  this  bet  were  in  Cilley 's 
favor,  for  in  those  primitive  days  it  was 
much  easier  for  educated  young  men  to  ob 
tain  a  start  in  life  than  it  is  at  present,  and 
early  marriages  were  in  consequence  much 
more  common.* 


*  Horatio  Bridge,  47.    The  contract  was  dated  November 
14,  1824. 

74 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

The  year  1824  was  a  serious  one  in  American 
politics.  The  Republican-Democratic  party, 
having  become  omnipotent,  broke  to  pieces  of 
its  own  weight.  The  eastern  interest  nominated 
John  Quincy  Adams  for  the  Presidency;  the 
western  interest  nominated  Henry  Clay;  and 
the  frontier  interest  nominated  Andrew  Jackson. 
Unfortunately  the  frontier  interest  included  all 
the  unsettled  and  continually  shifting  elements 
in  the  country,  so  that  Jackson  had  nearly  as 
strong  a  support  in  the  East  as  in  the  West. 
Bridge  says,  "We  were  all  enthusiastic  sup 
porters  of  old  Hickory."  It  was  evidently 
Pierce  who  led  them  into  this,  and  although  it 
proved  in  a  material  sense  for  Hawthorne's 
benefit,  it  separated  him  permanently  from  the 
class  to  which  he  properly  belonged — the  en 
lightened  men  of  culture  of  his  time ;  and  Cilley's 
tragical  fate  can  be  directly  traced  to  it. 
The  Jackson  movement  was  in  its  essence 
a  revolt  against  civility, — and  it  seems  as  if 
Hawthorne  and  Bridge  might  have  recognized 
this. 

Hawthorne  was  well  liked  in  his  class  in  spite 
of  his  reserved  manners,  but  he  held  no  class 
offices  that  we  hear  of,  except  a  place  on  a  com 
mittee  of  the  Athenaean  Society  with  Franklin 
Pierce.  Class  days  and  class  suppers,  so  prolific 
of  small  honors,  were  not  introduced  at  Bowdoin 
until  some  years  later.  He  graduated  eigh 
teenth  in  a  class  of  thirty-eight,  but  this  was  not 
sufficient  to  give  him  a  part  in  the  commence- 


75 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

ment  exercises.*  Accordingly  Hawthorne, 
Bridge,  and  others  who  were  in  a  like  predic 
ament,  organized  a  mock  Commencement  cele 
bration  at  Ward's  Tavern,  where  they  elected 
officers  of  a  comical  sort,  such  as  boatswain 
and  sea-cook,  and  concluded  their  celebration 
in  a  manner  suitable  to  the  occasion. 

Hawthorne  was  commonly  known  among  his 
classmates,  as  "  Hath, "  and  his  friends  addressed 
him  in  this  manner  long  after  he  had  graduated. 
His  degree  was  made  out  in  the  name  of  Na 
thaniel  Hathorne,  above  which  he  subsequently 
wrote  "Hawthorne,"  in  bold  letters. 

The  question  may  well  be  raised  here,  how 
it  happened  that  America  produced  so  many 
men  of  remarkable  intellect  with  such  slight 
opportunities  for  education  in  former  times, 
while  our  greatly  improved  universities  have 
not  graduated  an  orator  like  Webster,  a  poet 
like  Longfellow,  or  a  prose- writer  equal  to 
Hawthorne  during  the  past  forty  years.  There 
have  been  few  enough  who  have  risen  above 
mediocrity. 

It  is  the  same,  more  or  less,  all  over  the 
civilized  world.  We  have  entered  into  a 
mechanical  age,  which  is  natural  enough  con 
sidering  the  rapid  advances  of  science  and  the 
numerous  mechanical  inventions,  but  which 

*  The  President  informed  him  that  his  rank  in  the  class 
would  have  entitled  him  to  a  part  if  it  had  not  been  for  his 
neglect  of  declamations;  and  Hawthorne  wrote  to  his 
mother  that  he  was  perfectly  satisfied  with  this,  for  it 
saved  him  the  mortification  of  appearing  in  public. 

76 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

is  decidedly  unfavorable  to  the  development 
of  art  and  literature.  Everything  now  goes  by 
machinery,  from  Harvard  University  to  Ohio 
politics  and  the  gigantic  United  States  Steel 
Company;  and  every  man  has  to  find  his  place 
in  some  machine  or  other,  or  he  is  thrown  out 
of  line.  Individual  effort,  as  well  as  independence 
of  thought  and  action,  is  everywhere  frowned 
upon;  but  without  freedom  of  thought  and 
action  there  can  be  no  great  individualities, 
which  is  the  same  as  saying  that  there  can  be 
no  poets  like  Longfellow,  or  writers  like  Haw 
thorne  and  Emerson.  Spontaneity  is  the  life 
of  the  true  artist,  and  in  a  mechanical  civiliza 
tion  there  can  be  neither  spontaneity  nor  the 
poetic  material  which  is  essential  to  artistic 
work  of  a  high  order.  There  can  be  no  great 
orators,  for  masses  of  men  are  no  longer  influ 
enced  by  oratory,  but  by  newspapers.  Genius 
is  like  a  plant  of  slow  growth,  which  requires 
sunshine  and  Mother  Earth  to  nourish  it,  not 
chemicals  and  electric  lights. 


77 


CHAPTER  IV 

LITTLE  MISERY:  1825-1835 

DURING  the  War  of  the  American  Revolution, 
the  officers  of  the  French  fleet,  which  was  sta 
tioned  at  Newport,  invented  a  game  of  cards, 
called  "Boston,"  of  which  one  peculiarity  was, 
that  under  certain  conditions,  whoever  held 
the  lowest  hand  would  win  the  count.  This  was 
called  " Little  Misery,  "and  this  was  the  kind  of 
hand  which  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  had  to  play 
for  fifteen  years  after  leaving  Bowdoin  College. 
Only  his  indomitable  will  could  have  carried 
him  through  it. 

A  college  graduate  who  lacks  the  means  to 
study  a  profession,  and  who  has  no  influential 
relative  to  make  a  place  for  him  in  the  world, 
finds  himself  in  a  most  discouraging  position. 
The  only  thing  that  his  education  has  fitted 
him  to  do  is,  to  teach  school,  and  he  may  not 
be  adapted  to  this,  on  account  of  some  personal 
peculiarity.  There  was,  and  I  suppose  is  still, 
a  prejudice  among  mercantile  men  against 
college  graduates,  as  a  class  of  proud,  indolent, 
neglectful  persons,  very  difficult  to  instruct.  Un 
doubtedly  there  are  many  such,  but  the  innocent 
have  to  suffer  with  the  guilty.  It  is  natural 
that  a  man  who  has  not  had  a  liberal  education 
should  object  to  employing  a  subordinate  who 
knows  Latin  and  Greek.  Whether  Hawthorne's 

78 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Uncle  Robert,  who  had  thus  far  proved  to  be 
his  guardian  genius,  would  have  educated  him 
for  a  profession,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing. 
This  would  mean  of  course  a  partial  support 
for  years  afterward,  and  it  is  quite  possible 
that  Mr.  Manning  considered  his  duties  to  his 
own  children  paramount  to  it.  What  he  did 
for  Nathaniel  may  have  been  the  best  he  could, 
to  give  him  the  position  of  book-keeper  for  the] 
stage-company.  This  was  of  course  Pegasus 
in  harness  (or  rather  at  the  hitching-post) , 
but  it  is  excellent  experience  for  every  young 
man ;  although  the  compensation  in  Hawthorne's 
case  was  small  and  there  could  be  no  expecta 
tion  of  future  advancement. 

In  this  dilemma  he  decided  to  do  the  one 
thing  for  which  Nature  intended  him, — to  be 
come  a  writer  of  fiction, — and  he  held  fast  to 
this  determination  in  the  face  of  most  discour 
aging  obstacles.  He  composed  a  series  of  short 
stories, — echoes  of  his  academic  years, — which  he 
proposed  to  publish  under  the  title  of  Words 
worth's  popular  poem,  "We  Are  Seven."  One 
of  these  is  said  to  have  been  based  on  the  witch 
craft  delusion,  and  it  is  a  pity  that  it  should  not 
have  been  preserved,  but  their  feminine  titles 
afford  no  indication  of  their  character.  He 
carried  them  to  a  publisher,  who  received  him 
politely  and  promised  to  examine  them,  but 
one  month  passed  after  another  without  Haw 
thorne's  hearing  from  him,  so  that  he  concluded 
at  length  to  make  inquiries.*  The  publisher 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  124. 
79 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

confessed  that  he  had  not  even  undertaken  to 
read  them,  and  Nathaniel  carried  them  back, 
with  a  sinking  heart,  to  his  little  chamber  in 
the  house  on  Herbert  Street, — where  he  may 
have  had  melancholy  thoughts  enough  for  the 
next  few  weeks. 

Youth,  however,  soon  outgrows  its  chagrins. 
In  less  than  two  years  Hawthorne  was  prepared 
to  enter  the  literary  lists,  equipped  with  a 
novelette,  called  "Fanshawe";  but  here  again 
he  was  destined  to  meet  with  a  rebuff.  After 
tendering  it  to  a  number  of  publishers  without 
encouragement,  he  concluded  to  take  the  risk 
of  publishing  it  himself.  This  only  cost  him  a 
few  hundred  dollars,  but  the  result  was  un 
satisfactory,  and  he  afterward  destroyed  all 
the  copies  that  he  could  regain  possession  of. 

Hawthorne's  genius  was  of  slow  development. 
He  was  only  twenty-four  when  he  published 
this  rather  immature  work,  and  it  might  have 
been  better  if  he  had  waited  longer.  It  was  to 
him  what  the  "Sorrows  of  Werther"  was  to 
Goethe,  but  while  the  "  Sorrows  of  Werther" 
made  Goethe  famous  in  many  countries,  "  Fan- 
shawe"  fell  still-born.  The  latter  was  not  more 
imitative  of  Scott  than  the  "  Sorrows  of  Werther  " 
is  of  Rousseau,  and  now  that  we  consider  it  in 
the  cool  critical  light  of  the  twentieth  century,  we 
cannot  but  wonder  that  the  "Sorrows  of  Werther" 
ever  produced  such  enthusiasm.  It  is  quite  as 
difficult  to  see  why  "  Fanshawe  "  should  not  have 
proved  a  success.  It  lacks  the  grace  and  dignity 
of  Hawthorne's  mature  style,  but  it  has  an  in- 

80 


i    UNSVER 

NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

genious  plot,  a  lively  action,  and  is  written  in 
sufficiently  good  English.  One  would  suppose 
that  its  faults  would  have  helped  to  make  it 
popular,  for  portions  of  it  are  so  exciting  as  to 
border  closely  on  the  sensational.  It  may  be 
affirmed  that  when  a  novel  becomes  so  exciting 
that  we  wish  to  turn  over  the  pages  and  antici 
pate  the  conclusion,  either  the  action  of  the 
story  is  too  heated  or  its  incidents  are  too  highly 
colored.  The  introduction  of  pirates  in  a  work 
of  fiction  is  decidely  sensational,  from  Walter 
Scott  downward,  and,  though  Hawthorne 
never  fell  into  this  error,  he  approaches  closely 
to  it  in  " Fanshawe."  There  is  some  dark 
secret  between  the  two  villains  of  the  piece, 
which  he  leaves  to  the  reader  as  an  exercise  for 
the  imagination.  This  is  a  characteristic  of 
all  his  longer  stories.  There  is  an  unknown 
quantity,  an  insoluble  point,  in  them,  which 
tantalizes  the  reader. 

What  we  especially  feel  in  "Fanshawe"  is 
the  author's  lack  of  social  experience.  His 
heroine  at  times  behaves  in  a  truly  feminine 
manner,  and  at  others  her  performances  make 
us  shiver.  Her  leaving  her  guardian's  house  at 
midnight  to  go  off  with  an  unknown  man,  whom 
her  maidenly  instinct  should  have  taught  her 
to  distrust,  even  if  Fanshawe  had  not  warned 
her  against  him,  might  have  been  characteristic 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  is  certainly  not  of  modern 
life.  Bowdoin  College  evidently  served  Haw 
thorne  as  a  background  to  his  plot,  although 
removed  some  distance  into  the  country,  and 
6  81 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

it  is  likely  that  the  portrait  of  the  kindly  professor 
might  have  been  recognized  there.  Ward's 
Tavern  serves  for  the  public-house  where  the 
various  characters  congregate,  and  there  is  a 
high  rocky  ledge  in  the  woods,  or  what  used  to 
be  woods  at  Brunswick,  where  the  students 
often  tried  their  skill  in  climbing,  and  which 
Hawthorne  has  idealized  into  the  cliff  where 
the  would-be  abductor  met  his  timely  fate. 
The  trout-brook  where  Bridge  and  Hawthorne 
used  to  fish  is  also  introduced. 

Fanshawe  himself  seems  like  a  house  of  which 
only  two  sides  have  been  built.  There  are  such 
persons,  and  it  is  no  wonder  if  they  prove  to  be 
short-lived.  Yet  the  scene  in  which  he  makes 
his  noble  renunciation  of  the  woman  who  is 
devoted  to  him,  purely  from  a  sense  of  grati 
tude,  is  finely  and  tenderly  drawn,  and  worthy 
of  Hawthorne  in  his  best  years.  The  story  was 

"published  after  its  author's  death,  and  fully 

Leserves  its  position  in  his  works. 
It  was  about  this  time  (1827)  that  Nathaniel 

[athorne  changed  his  name  to  Hawthorne. 
No  reason  has  ever  been  assigned  for  his  doing 
so,  and  he  had  no  legal  right  to  do  it  without 
an  act  of  the  Legislature,  but  he  took  a  revolu 
tionary  right,  and  as  his  family  and  fellow- 
citizens  acquiesced  in  this,  it  became  an  estab 
lished  fact.  His  living  relatives  in  the  Man 
ning  family  are  unable  to  explain  his  reason 
for  it.  It  may  have  been  for  the  sake  of  eu 
phony,  or  he  may  have  had  a  fanciful  notion, 
that  such  a  change  would  break  the  spell 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

which  seemed  to  be  dragging  his  family 
down  with  him.  Conway's  theory  that  it  was 
intended  to  serve  him  as  an  incognito  is  quite 
untenable.  His  name  first  appears  with  a  w  in 
the  Bowdoin  Triennial  Catalogue  of  1828. 

There  are  very  few  data  existing  as  to  Haw 
thorne's  life  during  his  first  ten  years  of  man 
hood,  but  it  must  have  been  a  hard,  dreary 
period  for  him.  The  Manning  children,  Robert, 
Elizabeth  and  Rebecca,  were  now  growing  up, 
and  must  have  been  a  source  of  entertainment 
in  their  way,  and  his  sister  Louisa  was  always 
a  comfort;  but  Horatio  Bridge,  who  made  a 
number  of  flying  visits  to  him,  states  that  he 
never  saw  the  elder  sister,  even  at  table, — a 
fact  from  which  we  may  draw  our  own  conclu 
sions.  Hawthorne  had  no  friends  at  this  time, 
except  his  college  associates,  and  they  were  all 
at  a  distance, — Pierce  and  Cilley  both  flourishing 
young  lawyers,  one  at  Concord,  New  Hampshire, 
and  the  other  at  Thomaston,  Maine, — while 
Longfellow  was  teaching  modern  languages 
at  Bowdoin.  He  had  no  lady  friends  to  brighten 
his  evenings  for  him,  and  if  he  went  into  society, 
it  was  only  to  be  stared  at  for  his  personal 
beauty,  like  a  jaguar  in  a  menagerie.  He  had 
no  fund  of  the  small  conversation  which  serves 
like  oil  to  make  the  social  machinery  run 
smoothly.  Like  all  deep  natures,  he  found  it 
difficult  to  adapt  himself  to  minds  of  a  different 
calibre.  Salem  people  noticed  this,  and  his  appar 
ent  lack  of  an  object  in  life, — for  he  maintained 
a  profound  secrecy  in  regard  to  his  literary 

83 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

efforts, — and  concluded  that  he  was  an  indolent 
young  man  without  any  faculty  for  business, 
and  would  never  come  to  good  in  this  world.  No 
doubt  elderly  females  admonished  him  for 
neglecting  his  opportunities,  and  small  wits 
buzzed  about  him  as  they  have  about  many 
another  under  similar  conditions.  It  was  Hans 
Andersen's  story  of  the  ugly  duck  that  proved 
to  be  a  swan. 

No  wonder  that  Hawthorne  betook  himself  to 
the  solitude  of  his  own  chamber,  and  consoled  him 
self  like  the  philosopher  who  said,  "When  I 
am  alone,  then  I  am  least  alone."  He  had  an 
internal  life  with  which  only  his  most  intimate 
friends  were  acquainted,  and  he  could  people 
his  room  with  forms  from  his  own  fancy,  much 
more  real  to  him  than  the  palpable  ignota 
whom  he  passed  in  the  street.  Beautiful  visions 
came  to  him,  instead  of  sermonizing  ladies, 
patronizing  money-changers,  aggressive  up 
starts,  grimacing  wiseacres,  and  that  large 
class  of  amiable,  well-meaning  persons  that 
makes  up  the  bulk  of  society.  We  should  not 
be  surprised  if  angels  sometimes  came  to  hover 
round  him,  for  to  the  pure  in  heart  heaven 
descends  upon  earth. 

There  is  a  passage  in  Hawthorne's  diary  under 
date  of  October  4,  1840,  which  has  often  been 
quoted ;  but  it  will  have  to  be  quoted  again,  for 
it  cannot  be  read  too  often,  and  no  biography  of 
him  would  be  adequate  without  it.  He  says  : 

"Here  I  sit  in  my  old  accustomed  chamber 
where  I  used  to  sit  in  days  gone  by  .... 

84 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

This  claims  to  be  called  a  haunted  chamber, 
for  thousands  upon  thousands  of  visions  have 
appeared  to  me  in  it;  and  some  few  of  them 
have  become  visible  to  the  world.  If  ever  I 
should  have  a  biographer,  he  ought  to  make 
great  mention  of  this  chamber  in  my  memoirs, 
because  so  much  of  my  lonely  youth  was  wasted 
here,  and  here  my  mind  and  character  were 
formed ;  and  here  I  have  been  glad  and  hopeful, 
and  here  I  have  been  despondent.  And  here  I 
sat  a  long,  long  time,  waiting  patiently  for  the 
world  to  know  me,  and  sometimes  wondering 
why  it  did  not  know  me  sooner,  or  whether 
it  would  ever  know  me  at  all, — at  least,  till  I 
were  in  my  grave.  And  sometimes  it  seemed  as 
if  I  were  already  in  the  grave,  with  only  life 
enough  to  be  chilled  and  benumbed.  But 
oftener  I  was  happy, — at  least  as  happy  as  I 
then  knew  how  to  be,  or  was  aware  of  the  pos 
sibility  of  being.  By  and  by,  the  world  found 
me  out  in  my  lonely  chamber,  and  called  me 
forth, — not  indeed,  with  a  loud  roar  of  acclama 
tion,  but  rather  with  a  still,  small  voice, — and 
forth  I  went,  but  found  nothing  in  the  world 
that  I  thought  preferable  to  my  solitude  till 
now  ....  and  now  I  begin  to  under 
stand  why  I  was  imprisoned  so  many  years 
in  this  lonely  chamber,  and  why  I  could  never 
break  through  the  viewless  bolts  and  bars; 
for  if  I  had  sooner  made  my  escape  into  the 
world,  I  should  have  grown  hard  and  rough, 
and  been  covered  with  earthly  dust,  and  my 
heart  might  have  become  callous  by  rude  en- 

85 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

counters  with  the  multitude  ....  But 
living  in  solitude  till  the  fulness  of  time  was 
come,  I  still  kept  the  dew  of  my  youth,  and 
the  freshness  of  my  heart. " 

During  these  dismal  years  Horatio  Bridge 
was  Hawthorne's  good  genius.  The  letters  that 
Hawthorne  wrote  to  him  have  not  been  pre 
served,  but  we  may  judge  of  their  character 
by  Bridge's  replies  to  him — always  frank, 
manly,  sympathetic  and  encouraging.  Haw 
thorne  evidently  confided  his  troubles  and 
difficulties  to  Bridge,  as  he  would  to  an  elder 
brother.  Bridge  finally  destroyed  Hawthorne's 
letters,  not  so  much  on  account  of  their  com 
plaining  tone  as  for  the  personalities  they  con 
tained;*  and  this  suggests  to  us  that  there  was 
still  another  side  to  Hawthorne's  life  at  this 
epoch  concerning  which  we  shall  never  be  en 
lightened.  A  man  could  not  have  had  a  better 
friend  than  Horatio  Bridge.  He  was  to  Haw 
thorne  what  Edward  Irving  was  to  Carlyle; 
and  the  world  is  more  indebted  to  them  both 
than  it  often  realizes. 

There  is  in  fact  a  decided  similarity  between 
the  lives  of  Carlyle  and  Hawthorne,  in  spite 
of  radical  differences  in  their  work  and  char 
acters.  Both  started  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder, 
and  met  with  a  hard,  long  struggle  for  recogni 
tion;  both  found  it  equally  difficult  to  earn 
their  living  by  their  pens;  both  were  assisted 
by  most  devoted  friends,  and  both  finally 
achieved  a  reputation  among  the  highest  in  their 

*  Horatio  Bridge,  69. 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

own  time.  If  there  is  sometimes  a  melancholy 
tinge  in  their  writings,  may  we  wonder  at  it? 
Pericles  said,  "We  need  the  theatre  to  chase 
away  the  sadness  of  life,"  and  it  might  have 
benefited  the  whole  Hawthorne  family  to  have 
gone  to  the  theatre  once  a  fortnight;  but  there 
were  few  entertainments  in  Salem,  except  of 
the  stiff  conventional  sort,  or  in  the  shape  of 
public  dances  open  to  firemen  and  shop-girls. 
Long  afterward,  Elizabeth  Hawthorne  wrote 
of  her  brother: 

"His  habits  were  as  regular  as  possible.  In  the  evening 
after  tea  he  went  out  for  about  an  hour,  whatever  the 
weather  was;  and  in  winter,  after  his  return,  he  ate  a  pint 
bowl  of  thick  chocolate — (not  cocoa,  but  the  old-fashioned 
chocolate)  crumbed  full  of  bread:  eating  never  hurt  him 
then,  and  he  liked  good  things.  In  summer  he  ate  some 
thing  equivalent,  finishing  with  fruit  in  the  season  of  it.  In 
the  evening  we  discussed  political  affairs,  upon  which  we 
differed  in  opinion;  he  being  a  Democrat,  and  I  of  the 
opposite  party.  In  reality,  his  interest  in  such  things  was 
so  slight  that  I  think  nothing  would  have  kept  it  alive  but 
my  contentious  spirit.  Sometimes,  when  he  had  a  book  that 
he  particularly  liked,  he  would  not  talk.  He  read  a  great 
many  novels. "  * 

If  Elizabeth  possessed  the  genius  which  her 
brother  supposed,  she  certainly  does  not  indi 
cate  it  in  this  letter;  but  genius  in  the  ore  is 
very  different  from  genius  smelted  and  refined 
by  effort  and  experience.  The  one  important 
fact  in  her  statement  is  that  Hawthorne  was  in 
the  habit  of  taking  solitary  rambles  after  dark, 
— an  owlish  practice,  but  very  attractive  to 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  125. 
87 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

romantic  minds.  Human  nature  appears  in 
a  more  pictorial  guise  by  lamplight,  after  the 
day's  work  is  over.  The  groups  at  the  street 
corners,  the  glittering  display  in  the  watch 
maker's  windows,  the  carriages  flashing  by  and 
disappearing  in  the  darkness,  the  mysterious 
errands  of  foot-passengers,  all  served  as  object- 
lessons  for  this  student  of  his  own  kind. 
Jonathan  Cilley  once  said : 

' '  I  love  Hawthorne ;  I  admire  him ;  but  I  do  not  know 
him.  He  lives  in  a  mysterious  world  of  thought  and 
imagination  which  he  never  permits  me  to  enter."* 

Long-continued  thinking  is  sure  to  take 
effect  at  last,  either  in  words  or  in  action,  and 
Hawthorne's  mind  had  to  disburden  itself  in 
some  manner.  So,  after  the  failure  of  "  Fan- 
shawe, "  he  returned  to  his  original  plan  of 
writing  short  stories,  and  this  time  with  success. 
In  January,  1830,  the  well-known  tale  of  "The 
Gentle  Boy"  was  accepted  by  S.  G.  Goodrich, 
the  editor  of  a  Boston  publication  called  the 
Token,  who  was  himself  better  known  in  those 
days  under  the  nom  de  plume  of  "  Peter  Parley. " 
"The  Wives  of  the  Dead,"  "Roger  Malvin's 
Burial,"  and  "Major  Molineaux"  soon  fol 
lowed.  In  1833  he  published  the  "Seven  Vaga 
bonds,  "  and  some  others.  The  New  York 
Knickerbocker  published  the  "Fountain  of 
Youth"  and  "Edward  Fayne's  Rosebud." 
After  1833  the  Token  and  the  New  England 
Magazine^  stood  ready  to  accept  all  the  short 

*  Packard's  "Bowdoin  College,"  306. 
f  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  175. 
88 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

pieces  that  Hawthorne  could  give  them,  but 
they  did  not  encourage  him  to  write  serial 
stories.  However,  it  was  not  the  custom  then 
for  writers  to  sign  their  names  to  magazine 
articles,  so  that  Hawthorne  gained  nothing  in 
reputation  by  this.  Some  of  his  earliest  pieces 
were  printed  over  the  signature  of  "Oberon. " 
An  autumn  expedition  to  the  White  Moun 
tains,  Lake  Champlain  and  Lake  Ontario,  and 
Niagara  Falls,  in  1832,  raised  Hawthorne's 
spirits  and  stimulated  his  ambition.  He  wrote 
to  his  mother  from  Burlington,  Vermont,  Sep 
tember  16: 

"I  have  arrived  in  safety,  having  passed  through  the 
White  Hills,  stopping  at  Ethan  Crawford's  house,  and 
climbing  Mt.  Washington.  I  have  not  decided  as  to  my 
future  course.  I  have  no  intention  of  going  into  Canada. 
I  have  heard  that  cholera  is  prevalent  in  Boston." 

It  was  something  to  have  stood  on  the  highest 
summit  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  to 
have  seen  all  New  England  lying  at  his  feet. 
A  hard  wind  in  the  Crawford  Notch,  which  he 
describes  in  his  story  of  "  The  Ambitious  Guest, " 
must  have  been  in  his  own  experience,  and  as 
he  passed  the  monument  of  the  ill-fated  Willey 
family  he  may  have  thought  that  he  too  might 
become  celebrated  after  his  death,  even  as 
they  were  from  their  poetic  catastrophe.  This 
expedition  provided  him  with  the  materials 
for  a  number  of  small  plots. 

The  ice  was  now  broken;  but  a  new  class  of 
difficulties  arose  before  him.  American  litera 
ture  was  then  in  the  bud  and  promised  a  beauti- 

89 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

ful  blossoming,  but  the  public  was  not  prepared 
for  it.  Monthly  magazines  had  a  precarious 
existence,  and  their  uncertainty  of  remuneration 
reacted  on  the  contributors.  Hawthorne  was 
poorly  paid,  often  obliged  to  wait  a  long  time 
for  his  pay,  and  occasionally  lost  it  altogether. 
For  his  story  of  "The  Gentle  Boy,"  one  of  the 
gems  of  literature,  which  ought  to  be  read  aloud 
every  year  in  the  public  schools,  he  received 
the  paltry  sum  of  thirty-five  dollars.  Evidently 
he  could  not  earn  even  a  modest  maintenance  on 
such  terms,  and  his  letters  to  Bridge  became 
more  despondent  than  ever. 

Goodrich,  who  was  a  writer  of  the  Andrews 
Norton  class,  soon  perceived  that  Hawthorne 
could  make  better  sentences  than  his  own,  and 
engaged  him  to  write  historical  abstracts  for 
his  pitiful  Peter  Parley  books,  paying  him  a 
hundred  dollars  for  the  whole  work,  and  secur 
ing  for  himself  all  the  credit  that  appertained 
to  it.  Everybody  knew  who  Peter  Parley  was, 
but  it  has  only  recently  been  discovered  that 
much  of  the  literature  which  passed  under  his 
name  was  the  work  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

The  editor  of  a  New  York  magazine  to  which 
Hawthorne  contributed  a  number  of  sketches 
repeatedly  deferred  the  payment  for  them,  and 
finally  confessed  his  inability  to  make  it, — 
which  he  probably  knew  or  intended  before 
hand.  Then,  with  true  metropolitan  assurance, 
he  begged  of  Hawthorne  the  use  of  certain 
unpublished  manuscripts,  which  he  still  had 
in  his  possession.  Hawthorne  with  unlimited 

90 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

contempt  told  the  fellow  that  he  might  keep 
them,  and  then  wrote  to  Bridge  : 

"Thus  has  this  man,  who  would  be  considered  a  Maecenas, 
taken  from  a  penniless  writer  material  incomparably 
better  than  any  his  own  brain  can  supply."* 

Whether  this  New  York  periodical  was  the 
Knickerbocker  or  some  other,  we  are  not  informed ; 
neither  do  we  know  what  Bridge  replied  to 
Hawthorne,  who  had  closed  his  letter  with  a 
malediction,  on  the  aforesaid  editor,  but  else 
where  in  his  memoirs  he  remarks : 

"  Hawthorne  received  but  small  compensation  for  any 
of  this  literary  work,  for  he  lacked  the  knowledge  of 
business  and  the  self-assertion  necessary  to  obtain  even 
the  moderate  remuneration  vouchsafed  to  writers  fifty 
years  ago."  f 

If  Horatio  Bridge  had  been  an  author  himself, 
he  would  not  have  written  this  statement  con 
cerning  his  friend.  Magazine  editors  are  like 
men  in  other  professions  :  some  of  them  are 
honorable  and  others  are  less  so;  but  an  author 
who  offers  a  manuscript  to  the  editor  of  a  maga 
zine  is  wholly  at  his  mercy,  so  far  as  that  small 
piece  of  property  is  concerned.  The  author 
cannot  make  a  bargain  with  the  editor  as  he 
can  with  the  publisher  of  his  book,  and  is  obliged 
to  accept  whatever  the  latter  chooses  to  give 
him.  Instances  have  been  known  where  an 
editor  has  destroyed  a  valuable  manuscript, 

*  Horatio  Bridge,  68,  69. 
t  Horatio  Bridge,  77. 

91 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

without  compensation  or  explanation  of  any 
kind.  Hawthorne  was  doing  the  best  that  a 
human  being  could  under  the  conditions  that 
were  given  him.  Above  all  things,  he  was  true 
to  himself;  no  man  could  be  more  so. 

Yet  Bridge  wrote  to  him  on  Christmas  Day, 
1836: 

"The  bane  of  your  life  has  been  self-distrust.  This  has 
kept  you  back  for  many  years;  which,  if  you  had  im 
proved  by  publishing,  would  long  ago  have  given  you  what 
you  must  now  wait  a  long  time  for.  It  may  be  for  the 
best,  but  I  doubt  it." 

Nothing  is  more  trying  in  misfortune  than 
the  ill-judged  advice  of  well-meaning  friends. 
There  is  no  nettle  that  stings  like  it.  To  expect 
Hawthorne  to  become  a  literary  genius,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  develop  the  peculiar  faculties 
of  a  commercial  traveller  or  a  curb-stone  broker, 
was  unreasonable.  In  the  phraseology  of  Sir 
William  Hamilton,  the  two  vocations  are  "non- 
compossible. "  Bridge  himself  was  undertaking 
a  grandly  unpractical  project  about  this  time: 
nothing  less  than  an  attempt  to  dam  the  Andros- 
coggin,  a  river  liable  to  devastating  floods; 
and  in  this  enterprise  he  was  obliged  to  trust 
to  a  class  of  men  who  were  much  more  uncertain 
in  their  ways  and  methods  than  those  with 
whom  Hawthorne  dealt.  Horatio  Bridge  had 
not  studied  civil  engineering,  and  the  result 
was  that  before  two  years  had  elapsed  the 
floods  on  the  Androscoggin  swept  the  dam  away, 
and  his  fortune  with  it. 

92 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

In  the  same  letter  we  also  notice  this  para 
graph  concerning  another  Bowdoin  friend: 

"And  so  Frank  Pierce  is  elected  Senator.  There  is  an 
instance  of  what  a  man  can  do  by  trying.  With  no  very 
remarkable  talents,  he  at  the  age  of  thirty-four  fills  one  of 
the  highest  stations  in  the  nation.  He  is  a  good  fellow, 
and  I  rejoice  at  his  success."* 

Pierce  certainly  possessed  the  cap  of  For- 
tunatus,  and  it  seems  as  if  there  must  have 
been  some  magic  faculty  in  the  man,  which 
enabled  him  to  win  high  positions  so  easily; 
and  he  continued  to  do  this,  although  he  had 
not  distinguished  himself  particularly  as  a 
member  of  Congress,  and  he  appeared  to  still 
less  advantage  among  the  great  party  leaders 
in  the  United  States  Senate.  He  illustrated 
the  faculty  for  "  getting  elected.  " 

In  October,  1836,  the  time  arrived  for  settling 
the  matrimonial  wager  between  Hawthorne 
and  Jonathan  Cilley,  which  they  had  made  at 
college  twelve  years  before.  Bridge  accordingly 
examined  the  documents  which  they  had  de 
posited  with  him,  and  notified  Cilley  that  he 
was  under  obligation  to  provide  Hawthorne 
with  an  octavo  of  Madeira. 

Cilley's  letter  to  Hawthorne  on  this  occasion 
does  not  impress  one  favorably.f  It  is  familiar 
and  jocose,  without  being  either  witty  or  friendly, 
and  he  gives  no  intimation  in  it  of  an  inten- 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  148. 
f  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  144. 

93 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

tion  to  fulfil  his  promise.     Hawthorne  appears 
to  have  sent  the  letter  to  Bridge,  who  replied: 

"I  doubt  whether  you  ever  get  your  wine  from  Cilley. 
His  inquiring  of  you  whether  he  had  really  lost  the  bet  is 
suspicious ;  and  he  has  written  me  in  a  manner  inconsistent 
with  an  intention  of  paying  promptly ;  and  if  a  bet  grows 
old  it  grows  cold.  He  wished  me  to  propose  to  you  to  have 
it  paid  at  Brunswick  next  Commencement,  and  to  have  as 
many  of  our  classmates  as  could  be  mustered  to  drink  it. 
It  may  be  Cilley's  idea  to  pay  over  the  balance  after  tak 
ing  a  strong  pull  at  it;  if  so,  it  is  well  enough.  But  still  it 
should  be  tendered  within  the  month.  " 

In  short,  Cilley  behaved  in  this  matter  much 
in  the  style  of  a  tricky  Van  Buren  politician, 
making  a  great  bluster  of  words,  and  privately 
intending  to  do  nothing.  He  was  running  for 
Congress  at  the  time  on  the  Van  Buren  ticket, 
and  it  is  quite  likely  that  the  expenses  of  the 
campaign  had  exhausted  his  funds.  That  he 
should  never  have  paid  the  bet  was  less  to  Haw 
thorne's  disadvantage  than  his  own. 

It  was  now  that  Horatio  Bridge  proved  him 
self  a  true  friend,  and  equally  a  man.  In  the 
spring  of  1836  Goodrich  had  obtained  for  Haw 
thorne  the  editorship  of  the  American  Magazine 
of  Useful  and  Entertaining  Knowledge,  with  a 
salary  of  five  hundred  dollars;*  but  he  soon 
discovered  that  he  had  embarked  on  a  ship 
with  a  rotten  hulk.  He  started  of!  heroically, 
writing  the  whole  of  the  first  number  with  the 
help  of  his  sister  Elizabeth;  but  by  midsummer 
the  concern  was  bankrupt,  and  he  retired  to 
his  lonely  cell,  more  gloomy  and  despondent 

*  Conway,  45. 
94 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

than  before.  There  are  few  sadder  spectacles 
then  that  of  a  man  seeking  work  without  being 
able  to  obtain  it;  and  this  applies  to  the  man  of 
genius  as  well  as  to  the  day  laborer. 

Horatio  Bridge  now  realized  that  the  time 
had  come  for  him  to  interfere.  He  recognized 
that  Hawthorne  was  gradually  lapsing  into  a 
hypochondria  that  might  terminate  fatally; 
that  he  was  Goethe's  oak  planted  in  a  flower 
pot,  and  that  unless  the  flower-pot  could  be 
broken,  the  oak  would  die.  He  also  saw  that 
Hawthorne  would  never  receive  the  public 
recognition  that  was  due  to  his  ability,  so  long 
as  he  published  magazine  articles  under  an 
assumed  name.  He  accordingly  wrote  to  Good 
rich — fortunately  before  his  mill-dam  gave  way- 
suggesting  the  publication  of  a  volume  of  Haw 
thorne's  stories,  and  offered  to  guarantee  the 
publisher  against  loss.  This  proposition  was 
readily  accepted,  but  Bridge  might  have  made 
a  much  better  bargain.  What  it  amounted 
to  was,  the  half -profit  system  without  the  half- 
profit.  The  necessary  papers  were  exchanged 
and  Hawthorne  gladly  acceded  to  Goodrich 's 
terms.  Bridge,  however,  had  cautioned  Good 
rich  not  to  inform  Hawthorne  of  his  share  in 
the  enterprise,  and  the  consequence  of  this  was 
that  he  shortly  received  a  letter  from  Hawthorne, 
informing  him  of  the  good  news — which  he  knew 
already — and  praising  Goodrich,  to  whom  he 
proposed  to  dedicate  his  new  volume.  Bridge's 
generosity  had  come  back  to  him,  dried  and 
salted, — as  it  has  to  many  another. 

95 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

What  could  Bridge  do,  in  the  premises? 
Goodrich  had  written  to  Hawthorne  that  the 
publisher,  Mr.  Howes,  was  confident  of  making 
a  favorable  arrangement  with  a  man  of  capital 
who  would  edit  the  book;  but  Bridge  did 
not  know  this,  and  he  suspected  Goodrich  of 
sailing  into  Hawthorne's  favor  under  a  false 
flag.  He  therefore  wrote  to  Hawthorne,  No 
vember  17,  1836: 

"  I  fear  you  will  hurt  yourself  by  puffing  Goodrich  un 
deservedly, — for  there  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  of  his  selfish 
ness  in  regard  to  your  work  and  yourself.  I  am  perfectly 
aware  that  he  has  taken  a  good  deal  of  interest  in  you,  but 
when  did  he  ever  do  anything  for  you  without  a  quid  pro 
quo?  The  magazine  was  given  to  you  for  $100  less  than 
it  should  have  been.  The  Token  was  saved  by  your  writing. 
Unless  you  are  already  committed,  do  not  mar  the  pros 
pects  of  your  first  book  by  hoisting  Goodrich  into  favor. " 

This  prevented  the  dedication,  for  which 
Hawthorne  was  afterward  thankful  enough. 
The  book,  which  was  the  first  volume  of  "  Twice 
Told  Tales"  came  from  the  press  the  following 
spring,  and  proved  an  immediate  success,  al 
though  not  a  highly  lucrative  one  for  its  author. 
With  the  help  of  Longfellow's  cordial  review 
of  it  in  the  North  American  it  established  Haw 
thorne's  reputation  on  a  firm  and  irrefragable 
basis.  All  honor  to  Horatio. 

As  if  Hawthorne  had  not  seen  a  sufficiently 
long  " winter  of  discontent"  already,  his  friends 
now  proposed  to  obtain  the  position  of  secretary 
and  chronicler  for  him  on  Commodore  Jones's 
exploring  expedition  to  the  South  Pole !  Frank- 

96 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

lin  Pierce  was  the  first  to  think  of  this,  but 
Bridge  interceded  with  Cilley  to  give  it  his 
support,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they 
would  have  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  position 
for  Hawthorne,  but  the  expedition  itself  failed, 
for  lack  of  a  Congressional  appropriation.  The 
following  year,  1838,  the  project  was  again 
brought  forward  by  the  administration,  and 
Congress  being  in  a  more  amiable  frame  of  mind 
granted  the  requisite  funds;  but  Hawthorne 
had  now  contracted  new  ties  in  his  native  city, 
bound,  as  it  were,  by  an  inseparable  cord  stronger 
than  a  Manila  hawser,  and  Doctor  Nathaniel 
Peabody's  hospitable  parlors  were  more  at 
tractive  to  him  than  anything  the  Antarctic 
regions  could  offer. 

We  have  now  entered  upon  the  period  where 
Hawthorne's  own  diary  commences,  the  auto 
biography  of  a  pure-minded,  closely  observing 
man;  an  invaluable  record,  which  began  ap 
parently  in  1835,  and  was  continued  nearly 
until  the  close  of  his  life;  now  published  in  a 
succession  of  American,  English  and  Italian 
note-books.  In  it  we  find  records  of  what  he 
saw  and  thought;  descriptive  passages,  after 
ward  made  serviceable  in  his  works  of  fiction, 
and  perhaps  written  with  that  object  in  view; 
fanciful  notions %  jotted  down  on  the  impulse 
of  the  moment;  records  of  his  social  life;  but 
little  critical  writing  or  personal  confessions, — 
although  the  latter  may  have  been  reserved 
from  publication  by  his  different  editors.  It  is 
known  that  much  of  his  diary  has  not  yet 

7  97 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

been  given  to  the  public,  and  perhaps  never 
will  be. 

In  July,  1837,  Hawthorne  went  to  Augusta, 
to  spend  a  month  with  his  friend  Horatio  Bridge ; 
went  fishing  with  him,  for  what  they  called 
white  perch,  probably  the  saibling;*  and  was 
greatly  entertained  with  the  peculiarities  of  an 
idiomatic  Frenchman,  an  itinerant  teacher  of 
that  language,  whom  Bridge,  in  the  kindness 
of  his  heart,  had  taken  into  his  own  house.  The 
last  of  July,  Cilley  also  made  his  appearance, 
but  did  not  bring  the  Madeira  with  him,  and 
Hawthorne  has  left  this  rather  critical  portrait 
of  him  in  his  diary; 

"  Friday,    July    28th.  —  Saw     my    classmate 

and  formerly  intimate  friend,  ,  for  the  first 

time  since  we  graduated.  He  has  met  with 
good  success  in  life,  in  spite  of  circumstances, 
having  struggled  upward  against  bitter  op 
position,  by  the  force  of  his  abilities,  to  be  a 
member  of  Congress,  after  having  been  for  some 
time  the  leader  of  his  party  in  the  State  Legisla 
ture.  We  met  like  old  friends,  and  conversed 
almost  as  freely  as  we  used  to  do  in  college 
days,  twelve  years  ago  and  more.  He  is  a 
singular  person,  shrewd,  crafty,  insinuating, 
with  wonderful  tact,  seizing  on  each  man  by 
his  manageable  point,  and  using  him  for  his 
own  purpose,  often  without  the  man's  suspecting 

*  The  American  saibling,  or  golden  trout,  is  only  in 
digenous  to  Lake  Sunapee,  New  Hampshire,  and  to  a 
small  lake  near  Augusta. 

98 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

that  he  is  made  a  tool  of;  and  yet,  artificial 
as  his  character  would  seem  to  be,  his  conver 
sation,  at  least  to  myself,  was  full  of  natural 
feeling,  the  expression  of  which  can  hardly  be 
mistaken,  and  his  revelations  with  regard  to 
himself  had  really  a  great  deal  of  frankness. 
A  man  of  the  most  open  nature  might  well 
have  been  more  reserved  to  a  friend,  after 
twelve  years  separation,  than  -  -  was  to  me. 
Nevertheless,  he  is  really  a  crafty  man,  con 
cealing,  like  a  murder-secret,  anything  that  it 
is  not  good  for  him  to  have  known.  He  by 
no  means  feigns  the  good  feeling  that  he  pro 
fesses,  nor  is  there  anything  affected  in  the 
frankness  of  his  conversation;  and  it  is  this 
that  makes  him  so  fascinating.  There  is  such 
a  quantity  of  truth  and  kindliness  and  warm 
affections,  that  a  man's  heart  opens  to  him, 
in  spite  of  himself.  He  deceives  by  truth. 
And  not  only  is  he  crafty,  but,  when  occasion 
demands,  bold  and  fierce  like  a  tiger,  deter 
mined,  and  even  straightforward  and  undis 
guised  in  his  measures, — a  daring  fellow  as  well 
as  a  sly  one." 

This  can  be  no  other  than  Jonathan  Cilley; 
like  many  of  his  class,  a  man  of  great  good 
humor  but  not  over-scrupulous,  so  far  as  the 
means  he  might  make  use  of  were  concerned. 
He  did  not,  however,  prove  to  be  as  skilful  a 
diplomat  as  Hawthorne  seems  to  have  supposed 
him.  The  duel  between  Cilley  and  Graves,  of 
Kentucky,  has  been  so  variously  misrepre 
sented  that  the  present  occasion  would  seem  a 

99 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

fitting  opportunity  to  tell  the  plain  truth  con 
cerning  it. 

President  Jackson  was  an  honest  man,  in 
the  customary  sense  of  the  term,  and  he  would 
have  scorned  to  take  a  dollar  that  was  not  his 
own;  but  he  suffered  greatly  from  parasites, 
who  pilfered  the  nation's  money, — the  natural 
consequence  of  the  spoils-of -office  system. 
The  exposure  of  these  peculations  gave  the 
Whigs  a  decided  advantage,  and  Cilley,  who 
had  quickly  proved  his  ability  in  debate,  at 
tempted  to  set  a  back-fire  by  accusing  Watson 
Webb,  the  editor  of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer, 
of  having  been  bribed  to  change  the  politics 
of  his  paper.  The  true  facts  of  the  case  were, 
that  the  paper  had  been  purchased  by  the 
Whigs,  and  Webb,  of  course,  had  a  right  to 
change  his  politics  if  he  chose  to;  and  the  net 
result  of  Cilley 's  attack  was  a  challenge  to  mortal 
combat,  carried  by  Representative  Graves,  of 
Kentucky.  Cilley,  although  a  man  of  courage, 
declined  this,  on  the  ground  that  members  of 
Congress  ought  not  to  be  called  to  account  out 
side  of  the  Capitol,  for  words  spoken  in  debate. 
"Then,"  said  Graves,  "you  will  at  least  admit 
that  my  friend  is  a  gentleman. " 

This  was  a  fair  offer  toward  conciliation, 
and  if  Cilley  had  been  peaceably  inclined  he 
would  certainly  have  accepted  it;  but  he  ob 
stinately  refused  to  acknowledge  that  General 
Webb  was  a  gentleman,  and  in  consequence  of 
this  he  received  a  second  challenge  the  next 
day  from  Graves,  brought  by  Henry  A.  Wise, 

100 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

afterward  Governor  of  Virginia.  Cilley  still 
objected  to  fighting,  but  members  of  his  party 
urged  him  into  it:  the  duel  took  place,  and 
Cilley  was  killed. 

It  may  be  said  in  favor  of  the  "  code  of  honor  " 
that  it  discourages  blackguardism  and  instructs 
a  man  to  keep  a  civil  tongue;  but  it  is  not  al 
ways  possible  to  prevent  outbursts  of  temper, 
especially  in  hot  climates,  and  a  man's  wife  and 
children  should  also  be  considered.  Andrew 
Jackson  said  at  the  close  of  his  life,  that  there 
was  nothing  he  regretted  so  much  as  having 
killed  a  human  being  in  a  duel.  Man  rises  by 
humility,  and  angels  fall  from  pride. 

Hawthorne  wrote  a  kindly  and  regretful 
notice  of  the  death  of  his  old  acquaintance, 
which  was  published  in  the  Democratic  Review, 
and  which  closed  with  this  significant  passage: 

"  Alas,  that  over  the  grave  of  a  dear  friend, 
my  sorrow  for  the  bereavement  must  be  mingled 
with  another  grief — that  he  threw  away  such 
a  life  in  so  miserable  a  cause!  Why,  as  he  was 
true  to  the  Northern  character  in  all  things 
else,  did  he  swerve  from  his  Northern  principles 
in  this  final  scene?"  * 

It  will  be  well  to  bear  this  in  mind  in  con 
nection  with  a  somewhat  similar  incident, 
which  we  have  now  to  consider. 

An  anecdote  has  been  repeated  in  all  the  books 
about  Hawthorne  published  since  1880,  which 
would  do  him  little  credit  if  it  could  be  proved, — 

*  Conway,  63. 

191 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

a  story  that  he  challenged  one  of  his  friends  to  a 
duel,  at  the  instigation  of  a  vulgar  and  unprin 
cipled  young  woman.  Horatio  Bridge  says  in 
reference  to  it: 

"This  characteristic  was  notably  displayed  several  years 
later,  when  a  lady  incited  him  to  quarrel  with  one  of 
his  best  friends  on  account  of  a  groundless  pique  of  hers. 
He  went  to  Washington  for  the  purpose  of  challenging  the 
gentleman,  and  it  was  only  after  ample  explanation  had  been 
made,  showing  that  his  friend  had  behaved  with  entire 
honor,  that  Pierce  and  Cilley,  who  were  his  advisers,  could 
persuade  him  to  be  satisfied  without  a  fight."  * 

How  the  good  Horatio  could  have  fallen  into 
this  pit  is  unimaginable,  for  a  double  contra 
diction  is  contained  in  his  statement.  "  Some 
time  after  this,"  that  is  after  leaving  college, 
would  give  the  impression  that  the  affair  took 
place  about  1830,  whereas  Pierce  and  Cilley 
were  not  in  Washington  together  till  five  or  six 
years  later — probably  seven  years  later.  More 
over,  Hawthorne  states  in  a  letter  to  Pierce 's 
friend  O' Sullivan,  on  April  i,  1853,  that  he  had 
never  been  in  Washington  up  to  that  time. 
The  Manning  family  and  Mrs.  Hawthorne's 
relatives  never  heard  of  the  story  previous  to 
its  publication. 

The  internal  evidence  is  equally  strong  against 
it.  What  New  England  girl  would  behave  in 
the  manner  that  Hawthorne's  son  represents 
this  one  to  have  done?  What  young  gentleman 
would  have  listened  to  such  a  communication 
as  he  supposes,  and  especially  the  reserved  and 

*  Bridge,  5. 
102 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

modest  Hawthorne?  One  can  even  imagine 
the  aspect  of  horror  on  his  face  at  such  an 
unlady-like  proceeding.  The  story  would  be 
an  ignominious  one  for  Hawthorne,  if  it  were 
credible,  but  there  is  no  occasion  for  our  believing 
it  until  some  tangible  evidence  is  adduced  in 
its  support.  There  was  no  element  of  Quixo 
tism  in  his  composition,  and  it  is  quite  as  im 
possible  to  locate  the  identity  of  the  person 
whom  Hawthorne  is  supposed  to  have  challenged. 


103 


CHAPTER  V 

Eos  AND  EROS:  1835-1839 

IT  was  fortunate  for  Hawthorne  that  there 
was  at  this  time  a  periodical  in  the  United 
States,  the  North  American  Review,  which  was 
generally  looked  upon  as  an  authority  in  litera 
ture,  and  which  in  most  instances  deserved 
the  confidence  that  was  placed  in  it,  for  its  re 
views  were  written  by  men  of  distinguished 
ability.  It  was  the  North  American  Review 
which  made  the  reputation  of  L.  Maria  Child, 
and  which  enrolled  Hawthorne  in  the  order 
of  geniuses. 

There  is  not  much  literary  criticism  in  Long 
fellow's  review,  and  he  does  not  "rise  to  the 
level  of  the  accomplished  essayist"  of  our  own 
time,*  but  he  goes  to  the  main  point  with  the 
single-mindness  of  the  true  poet.  "  A  new  star, " 
he  says,  "has  appeared  in  the  skies" — a  veri 
table  prediction.  "Others  will  gaze  at  it  with 
telescopes,  and  decide  whether  it  is  in  the  con 
stellation  of  Orion  or  the  Great  Bear.  It  is 
enough  for  us  to  gaze  at  it,  to  admire  it,  and 
welcome  it. " 

"Although  Hawthorne  writes  in  prose,  he 
belongs  among  the  poets.  To  every  subject  he 
touches  he  gives  a  poetic  personality  which 
emanates  from  the  man  himself.  His  sympathies 

*  Who  writes  so  correctly  and  says  so  little  to  the  purpose. 
104 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

extend  to  all  things  living,  and  even  to  the 
inanimates.  Another  characteristic  is  the  ex 
ceeding  beauty  of  his  style.  It  is  as  clear  as 
running  waters  are.  Indeed  he  uses  words  as 
mere  stepping-stones,  upon  which,  with  a  free 
and  youthful  bound,  his  spirit  crosses  and  re- 
crosses  the  bright  and  rushing  stream  of 
thought." 

Again  he  says: 

"A  calm,  thoughtful  face  seems  to  be  looking 
at  you  from  every  page;  with  now  a  pleasant 
smile,  and  now  a  shade  of  sadness  stealing 
over  its  features.  Sometimes,  though  not 
often,  it  glares  wildly  at  you,  with  a  strange 
and  painful  expression,  as,  in  the  German 
romance,  the  bronze  knocker  of  the  Archivarius 
Lindhorst  makes  up  faces  at  the  Student  Ansel- 
mus. " 

Here  we  have  a  portrait  of  Hawthorne,  by 
one  who  knew  him,  in  a  few  simple  words;  and 
behind  a  calm  thoughtful  face  there  is  that 
mysterious  unknown  quantity  which  puzzles 
Longfellow  here,  and  always  perplexed  Haw 
thorne's  friends.  It  may  have  been  the  nucleus 
or  tap-root  of  his  genius. 

Longfellow  seems  to  have  felt  it  as  a  dividing 
line  between  them.  He  probably  felt  so  at 
college,;  and  this  brings  us  back  to  an  old  sub 
ject  A  Hawthorne's  superiority  to  Longfellow 
as  an"~~artist  consisted  essentially  in  this,  that 
he  was  never  an  optimist.  Puritanism  looked 
upon  human  nature  with  a  hostile  eye,  and  was 
inclined  to  see  evil  in  it  where  none  existed; 

105 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

and  Doctor  Channing,  who  inaugurated  the 
great  moral  movement  which  swept  Puritan 
ism  away  in  this  country,  tended,  as  all  re 
formers  do,  to  the  opposite  extreme, — to  that 
scepticism  of  evil  which,  as  George  Brandes 
says,  is  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  hypocrites 
and  sharpers.  This  was  justifiable  in  Doctor 
Channing,  but  among  his  followers  it  has  often 
degenerated  into  an  inverted  or  homoeopathic 
kind  of  Puritanism, — a  habit  of  excusing  the 
faults  of  others,  or  of  themselves,  on  the  score 
of  good  intentions — a  habit  of  self -justification, 
and  even  to  the  perverse  belief  that,  as  every 
thing  is  for  the  best,  whatever  we  do  in  this 
world  must  be  for  good.  To  this  class  of  senti 
mentalists  the  most  serious  evil  is  truth-seeing 
and  truth-speaking.  It  is  an  excellent  plan 
to  look  upon  the  bright  side  of  things,  but  one 
should  not  do  this  to  the  extent  of  blinding 
oneself  to  facts.  Doctor  Johnson  once  said  to 
Boswell,  "  Beware,  my  friend,  of  mixing  up 
virtue  and  vice;"  but  there  is  something  worse 
than  that,  and  it  is,  to  stigmatize  a  writer  as 
a  pessimist  or  a  hypochondriac  for  refusing  to 
take  rainbow-colored  views.  This,  however, 
would  never  apply  to  Longfellow. 

Hawthorne,  with  his  eye  ever  on  the  mark, 
pursued  a  middle  course.  He  separated  himself 
f**om  the  Puritans  without  joining  their  oppo 
nents,  and  thus  attained  the  most  independent 
stand-point  of  any  American  writer  of  his  time ; 
and  if  this  alienated  him  from  the  various 
humanitarian  movements  that  were  going 

1 06 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

forward,  it  was  nevertheless  a  decided  advantage 
for  the  work  he  was  intended  to  do.  In  this 
respect  he  resembled  Scott,  Thackeray  and 
George  Eliot. 

What  we  call  evil  or  sin  is  merely  the  nega 
tive  of  civilization, — a  tendency  to  return  to 
the  original  savage  condition.  In  the  light  of 
history,  there  is  always  progress  or  improve 
ment,  but  in  individual  cases  there  is  often  the 
reverse,  and  so  far  as  the  individual  is  concerned 
evil  is  no  imaginary  metaphor,  but  as  real  and 
absolute  as  what  we  call  good.  The  Bulgarian 
massacres  of  1877  were  a  historical  necessity, 
and  we  console  ourselves  in  thinking  of  them 
by  the  fact  that  they  may  have  assisted  the 
Bulgarians  in  obtaining  their  independence; 
but  this  was  no  consolation  to  the  twenty  or 
thirty  thousand  human  beings  who  were  ground 
to  powder  there.  To  them  there  was  no  comfort, 
no  hope, — only  the  terrible  reality.  Neither 
can  we  cast  the  responsibility  of  such  events  on 
the  mysterious  ways  of  Providence.  The  ways 
of  Providence  are  not  so  mysterious  to  those 
who  have  eyes  to  read  with.  Take  for  instance 
one  of  the  most  notable  cases  of  depravity, 
that  of  Nero.  If  we  consider  the  conditions 
under  which  he  was  born  and  brought  up,  the 
necessity  of  that  form  of  government  to  hold  a 
vast  empire  together,  and  the  course  of  history 
for  a  hundred  years  previous,  it  is  not  difficult 
to  trace  the  genesis  of  Nero's  crimes  to  the  greed 
of  the  Roman  people  (especially  of  its  merchants) 
for  conquest  and  plunder;  and  Nero  was  the 

107 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

price  which  they  were  finally  called  on  to  pay 
for  this.  Marcus  Aurelius,  a  noble  nature  reared 
under  favorable  conditions  for  its  development, 
became  the  Washington  of  his  time. 

It  is  the  same  in  private  life.  In  many  families 
there  are  evil  tendencies,  which  if  they  are  per 
mitted  to  increase  will  take  permanent  hold, 
like  a  bad  demon,  of  some  weak  individual,  and 
make  of  him  a  terror  and  a  torment  to  his 
relatives — fortunate  if  he  is  not  in  a  position 
of  authority.  He  may  serve  as  a  warning  to 
the  general  public,  but  in  the  domestic  circle 
he  is  an  unmitigated  evil, — he  or  she,  though  it 
is  not  so  likely  to  be  a  woman.  When  a  crime 
is  committed  within  the  precincts  of  good 
society,  we  are  greatly  shocked;  but  we  do  not 
often  notice  the  debasement  of  character  which 
leads  down  to  it,  and  still  more  rarely  notice  the 
instances  in  which  fear  or  some  other  motive 
arrests  demoralization  before  the  final  step, 
and  leaves  the  delinquent  as  it  were  in  a  con 
dition  of  moral  suspense. 

It  was  in  such  tragic  situations  that  Haw 
thorne  found  the  material  which  was  best  suited 
to  the  bent  of  his  genius. 

In  the  two  volumes,  however,  of  "Twice  Told 
Tales,  "-—the  second  published  two  years  later, — 
the  tragical  element  only  appears  as  an  under 
current  of  pathos  in  such  stories  as  "The  Gentle 
Boy,"  "Wakefield,"  "The  Maypole  of  Merry- 
mount,  "  and  "  The  Haunted  Mind,  "  but  reaches 
a  climax  in  "The  Ambitious  Guest"  and  "Lady 
Eleanor's  Mantle."  There  are  others,  like 

108 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

"tights  from  a  Steeple,"  and  "Little  Annie's 
Ramble,"  that  are  of  a  more  cheerful  cast, 
but  are  also  much  less  serious  in  their  composi 
tion.  "The  Minister's  Black  Veil,"  "The  Great 
Carbuncle,"  and  "The  Ambitious  Guest,"  are 
Dantean  allegories.  We  notice  that  each  volume 
begins  with  a  highly  patriotic  tale,  the  "Gray 
Champion,"  and  "Howe's  Masquerade,"  but 
the  patriotism  is  genuine  and  almost  fervid. 

When  I  first  looked  upon  the  house  in  which 
Hawthorne  lived  at  Sebago,  I  was  immediately 
reminded  of  these  earlier  studies  in  human 
nature,  which  are  of  so  simple  and  quiet  a  diction, 
so  wholly  devoid  of  rhetoric,  that  Elizabeth 
Peabody  thought  they  must  be  the  work  of  his 
sister,  and  others  supposed  them  to  have  been 
written  by  a  Quaker.  They  resemble  Diirer's 
wood-cuts, — gentle  and  tender  in  line,  but 
unswerving  in  their  fidelity.  We  sometimes 
wish  that  they  were  not  so  quiet  and  evenly 
composed,  and  then  repent  of  our  wish  that 
anything  so  perfect  should  be  different  from 
what  it  is.  His  "Twice  Told  Tales"  are  a 
picture-gallery  that  may  be  owned  in  any  house 
hold.  They  stand  alone  in  English,  and  there 
is^not  their  like  in  any  other  language. 

Yet  Hawthorne  is  not  a  word-painter  like 
Browning  and  Carlyle,  but  obtains  his  pictorial 
effect  by  simple  accuracy  of  description,  a  more 
difficult  process  than  the  other,  but  also  more 
satisfactory.  His  eyes  penetrate  the  masks 
and  wrappings  which  cover  human  nature,  as 
the  Rontgen  rays  penetrate  the  human  body. 

109 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

He  sees  a  man's  heart  through  the  flesh  and 
bones,  and  knows  what  is  concealed  in  it.  He 
ascends  a  church-steeple,  and  looking  down 
from  the  belfry  the  whole  life  of  the  town  is 
spread  out  before  him.  Men  and  women  come 
and  go — Hawthorne  knows  the  errands  they 
are  on.  He  sees  a  militia  company  parading 
below,  and  they  remind  him  from  that  elevation 
of  the  toy  soldiers  in  a  shop-window, — which 
they  turned  out  to  be,  pretty  much,  at  Bull 
Run.  A  fashionable  young  man  comes  along 
the  street  escorting  two  young  ladies,  and  sud 
denly  at  a  crossing  encounters  their  father, 
who  takes  them  away  from  him;  but  one  of 
them  gives  him  a  sweet  parting  look,  which 
amply  compensates  him  in  its  presage  of  future 
opportunities.  How  plainly  that  consolatory 
look  appears  between  our  eyes  and  the  printed 
page!  Then  Hawthorne  describes  the  grand 
march  of  a  thunder-storm, — as  in  Rembrandt's 
" Three  Trees," — with  its  rolling  masses  of  dark 
vapor,  preceded  by  a  skirmish-line  of  white  feath 
ery  clouds.  The  militia  company  is  defeated  at 
the  first  onset  of  this,  its  meteoric  enemy,  and 
driven  under  cover.  The  artillery  of  the  skies 
booms  and  flashes  about  Hawthorne  himself,  until 
finally :  "  A  little  speck  of  azure  has  widened  in  the 
western  heavens;  the  sunbeams  find  a  passage 
and  go  rejoicing  through  the  tempest,  and  on  yon 
der  darkest  cloud,  born  like  hallowed  hopes  of  the 
glory  of  another  world  and  the  trouble  and  tears 
of  this,  brightens  forth  the  rainbow."  All  this 
may  have  happened  just  as  it  is  set  down. 

no 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

"Lady  Eleanor's  Mantle"  exemplifies  the 
old  proverb,  "Pride  goeth  before  destruction," 
in  almost  too  severe  a  manner,  but  the  tale  is 
said  to  have  a  legendary  foundation;  and  "The 
Minister's  Black  Veil"  is  an  equally  awful 
symbolism  for  that  barrier  between  man  and 
man,  which  we  construct  through  suspicion 
and  our  lack  of  frankness  in  our  dealings  with 
one  another.  We  all  hide  ourselves  behind 
veils,  and,  as  Emerson  says,  "Man  crouches 
and  blushes,  absconds  and  conceals." 

"The  Ambitious  Guest"  allegorizes  a  vain 
imagination,  and  is  the  most  important  of  these 
three.  A  young  man  suffers  from  a  craving 
for  distinction,  which  he  believes  will  only  come 
to  him  after  this  life  is  ended.  He  is  walking 
through  the  White  Mountains,  and  stops  over 
night  at  the  house  of  the  ill-fated  Willey  family. 
He  talks  freely  on  the  subject  of  his  vain  expecta 
tions,  when  Destiny,  in  the  shape  of  an  avalanche, 
suddenly  overtakes  him,  and  buries  him  so 
deeply  that  neither  his  body  nor  his  name  has 
ever  been  recovered.  Hawthorne  might  have 
drawn  another  allegory  from  the  same  source, 
for  if  the  Willey  family  had  trusted  to  Provi 
dence,  and  remained  in  their  house,  instead  of 
rushing  out  into  the  dark,  they  would  not  have 
lost  their  lives. 

In  the  Democratic  Review  for  1834,  Hawthorne 
published  the  account  of  a  visit  to  Niagara 
Falls,  one  of  the  fruits  of  his  expedition  thither 
in  September,  1832,  by  way  of  the  White  Moun 
tains  and  Burlington,  the  journey  from  Salem 

in 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

to  Niagara  in  those  days  being  fully  equal  to 
going  from  New  York  to  the  cataracts  of  the 
Nile  in  our  own  time.  "The  Ambitious  Guest" 
was  published  in  the  same  volume  with  it,  and 
"The  Ontario  Steamboat"  first  appeared  in 
the  American  Magazine  of  Useful  and  Entertain 
ing  Knowledge,  in  1836.  Hawthorne  may  have 
made  other  expeditions  to  the  White  Moun 
tains,  but  we  do  not  hear  of  them. 

In  addition  to  the  three  studies  already  men 
tioned,  Hawthorne  drew  from  this  source  the 
two  finest  of  his  allegories,  "The  Great  Car 
buncle"  and  "The  Great  Stone  Face." 

"The  Great  Carbuncle"  is  not  only  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  of  Hawthorne's  tales,  but 
the  most  far-reaching  in  its  significance.  The 
idea  of  it  must  have  originated  in  the  Alpine 
glow,  an  effect  of  the  rising  or  setting  sun  on 
the  icy  peaks  of  a  mountain,  which  looks  at  a 
distance  like  a  burning  coal;  an  appearance 
only  visible  in  the  White  Mountains  during  the 
winter,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  Hawthorne 
should  not  have  seen  it  at  that  season  from  Lake 
Sebago.  At  a  distance  of  twenty  miles  or  more 
it  blazes  wonderfully,  but  on  a  nearer  approach 
it  entirely  disappears.  Hawthorne  could  not 
have  found  a  more  fascinating  subject,  and  he 
imagines  it  for  us  as  a  great  carbuncle  located 
in  the  upper  recesses  of  the  mountains. 

A  number  of  explorers  for  this  wonderful 
gem  meet  together  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain 
beyond  the  confines  of  civilization,  and  build  a 
hut  in  which  to  pass  the  night.  They  are  recog- 

112 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

nizable,  from  Hawthorne's  description,  as  the 
man  of  one  idea,  who  has  spent  his  whole  life 
seeking  the  gem;  a  scientific  experimenter  who 
wishes  to  grind  it  up  for  the  benefit  of  his  crucible ; 
a  cynical  sceptic  who  has  come  to  disprove  the 
existence  of  the  great  gem;  a  greedy  speculator 
who  seeks  the  carbuncle  as  he  would  prospect 
for  a  silver-mine;  an  English  lord  who  wishes 
to  add  it  to  his  hereditary  possessions;  and 
finally  a  young  married  couple  who  want  to 
obtain  it  for  an  ornament  to  their  new  cottage. 
The  interest  of  the  reader  immediately  centres 
on  these  last  two,  and  we  care  much  more  con 
cerning  their  fortunes  and  adventures  than  we 
do  about  the  carbuncle. 

The  conversation  that  evening  between  these 
ill-assorted  companions  is  in  Hawthorne's  most 
subtle  vein  of  irony,  and  would  haVe  delighted 
old  Socrates  himself.  Meanwhile  the  young 
bride  weaves  a  screen  of  twigs  and  leaves,  to 
protect  herself  and  her  husband  from  the  gaze 
of  the  curious. 

The  following  morning  they  all  set  out  by 
different  paths  in  search  of  the  carbuncle;  but 
our  thoughts  accompany  the  steps  of  the  young 
bride,  as  she  makes  one  toilsome  ascent  after 
another  until  she  feels  ready  to  sink  to  the 
ground  with  fatigue  and  discouragement.  They 
have  already  decided  to  return,  when  the  rosy 
light  of  the  carbuncle  bursts  upon  them  from 
beneath  the  lifting  clouds;  but  they  now  feel 
instinctively  that  it  is  too  great  a  prize  for  their 
possession.  The  man  of  one  idea  also  sees  it, 
8  113 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

and  his  life  goes  out  in  the  exultation  over  his 
final  success.  The  sceptic  appears,  but  cannot 
discover  it,  although  his  face  is  illumined  by 
its  light,  until  he  takes  off  his  large  spectacles; 
whereupon,  he  instantly  becomes  blind.  The 
English  nobleman  and  the  American  speculator 
fail  to  discover  it;  the  former  returns  to  his 
ancestral  halls,  as  wise  as  he  was  before;  and 
the  latter  is  captured  by  a  party  of  Indians  and 
obliged  to  pay  a  heavy  ransom  to  regain  freedom. 
The  scientific  pedant  finds  a  rare  specimen  of 
primeval  granite,  which  serves  his  purpose  quite 
as  well  as  the  carbuncle;  and  the  two  young 
doves  return  to  their  cot,  having  learned  the 
lesson  of  contentment. 

How  fortunate  was  Hawthorne  at  the  age  of 
thirty  thus  to  anatomize  the  chief  illusions  of 
life,  which  so  many  others  follow  until  old  age! 

It  is  an  erroneous  notion  that  Hawthorne 
found  the  chief  material  for  his  work  in  old 
New  England  traditions.  There  are  some  half- 
a-dozen  sketches  of  this  sort,  but  they  are  more 
formally  written  than  the  others,  and  remind 
one  of  those  portraits  by  Titian  which  were 
painted  from  other  portraits, — better  than  the 
originals,  but  not  equal  to  those  which  he  painted 
from  Nature. 

In  the  ''Sights  from  a  Steeple"  Hawthorne 
exposes  his  methods  of  study  and  betrays  the 
active  principle  of  his  existence.  He  says: 

"  The  most  desirable  mode  of  existence  might 
be  that  of  a  spiritualized  Paul  Pry  hovering 
invisible  round  man  and  woman,  witnessing 

114 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

their  deeds,  searching  into  their  hearths,  bor 
rowing  brightness  from  their  felicity  and  shade 
from  their  sorrow,  and  retaining  no  emotion 
peculiar  to  himself. " 

There  are  those  who  would  dislike  this  busy 
body  occupation,  and  others,  such  as  Emerson 
perhaps,  might  not  consider  it  justifiable;  but 
Hawthorne  is  not  to  be  censured  for  it,  for 
his  motive  was  an  elevated  one,  and  without 
this  close  scrutiny  of  human  nature  we  should 
have  had  neither  a  Hawthorne  nor  a  Shake 
speare.  There  is  no  quality  more  conspicuous 
in  "Twice  Told  Tales"  than  the  calm,  evenly 
balanced  mental  condition  of  the  author,  who 
seems  to  look  down  on  human  life  not  so  much 
from  a  church  steeple  as  from  the  blue  firma 
ment  itself. 

Such  was  the  Eos  or  dawn  of  Hawthorne's 
literary  art. 

Hawthorne  returned  thanks  to  Longfellow 
in  a  gracefully  humorous  letter,  to  which  Long 
fellow  replied  with  a  cordial  wish  to  see  Haw 
thorne  in  Cambridge,  and  by  advising  him  to 
dive  into  deeper  water  and  write  a  history  of 
the  Acadians  before  and  after  their  expulsion 
from  Nova  Scotia;  but  this  was  not  practicable 
for  minds  like  Hawthorne's,  surcharged  with 
poetic  images,  and  the  attempt  might  have 
proved  a  disturbing  influence  for  him.  He  had 
already  contributed  the  substance  to  Longfellow 
of  "  Evangeline,  "  and  he  now  wrote  a  eulogium 
on  the  poem  for  a  Salem  newspaper,  which  it 
must  be  confessed  did  not  differ  essentially 

115 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

from  other  reviews  of  the  same  order.  He  does 
not  give  us  any  clear  idea  of  how  the  poem 
actually  impressed  him,  which  is  after  all  the 
best  that  one  can  do  in  such  cases.  Poetry 
is  not  like  a  problem  in  mathematics,  which 
can  be  marked  right  or  wrong  according  to  its 
solution. 

When  a  young  man  obtains  a  substantial 
footing  in  his  profession  or  business,  he  looks 
about  him  for  a  wife — unless  he  happens  to  be 
already  pledged  in  that  particular;  and  Haw 
thorne  was  not  an  exception  to  this  rule.  He 
was  not  obliged  to  look  very  far,  and  yet  the 
chance  came  to  him  in  such  an  exceptional 
manner  that  it  seems  as  if  some  special  provi 
dence  were  connected  with  it.  His  position  in 
this  respect  was  a  peculiar  one.  He  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  much  acquainted  in  Salem 
even  now;  and  the  only  son  of  a  widow  with 
two  unmarried  sisters  may  be  said  to  have 
rather  a  slim  chance  for  escaping  from  those 
strong  ties  which  have  grown  up  between  them 
from  childhood.  Many  a  mother  has  prevented 
her  son  from  getting  married  until  it  has  become 
too  late  for  him  to  change  his  bachelor  habits. 
His  mother  and  his  sisters  realize  that  he  ought 
to  be  married,  and  that  he  has  a  right  to  a  home 
of  his  own;  but  in  their  heart  of  hearts  they 
combat  the  idea,  and  their  opposition  takes 
the  form  of  an  unsparing  criticism  of  "any  young 
lady  whom  he  follows  with  his  eyes.  This 
frequently  happens  also  in  a  family  of  girls: 

116 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

they  all  remain  unmarried  because,  if  one  of 
them  shows  an  inclination  in  that  direction,  the 
others  unite  in  a  conspiracy  against  her.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  family  of  four  or  five  boys  will 
marry  early,  if  they  can  obtain  the  means  of 
doing  so,  simply  from  the  need  of  feminine 
cheer  and  sympathy.  A  devoted  female  friend 
will  sometimes  prevent  a  young  woman  from 
being  married.  Love  affairs  are  soft  earth  for 
an  intriguing  and  unprincipled  woman  to  work 
in,  but,  fortunately,  Mrs.  Hawthorne  did  not 
belong  in  that  category. 

It  was  stout,  large-hearted  Elizabeth  Peabody 
who  broke  the  spell  of  the  enchanted  castle  in 
which  Hawthorne  was  confined.  The  Peabody s 
were  a  cultivated  family  in  Salem,  who  lived 
pretty  much  by  themselves,  as  the  Hawthornes 
and  Mannings  did.  Doctor  Nathaniel  Peabody 
was  a  respectable  practitioner,  but  he  had  not 
succeeded  in  curing  the  headaches  of  his  daughter 
Sophia,  which  came  upon  her  at  the  close  of  her 
girlhood  and  still  continued  intermittently  until 
this  time.  The  Graces  had  not  been  bountiful 
to  the  Peabody  family,  so,  to  compensate  for 
this,  they  all  cultivated  the  Muses,  in  whose 
society  they  ascended  no  little  distance  on  the 
way  to  Parnassus.  ^Elizabeth  Peabody  was  quite 
a  feminine  pundit.  She  learned  French  and 
German,  and  studied  history  and  archaeology; 
she  taught  history  on  a  large  scale  at  Sanborn's 
Concord  School  and  at  many  others;  she  had 
a  method  of  painting  dates  on  squares,  which 
fixed  them  indelibly  in  the  minds  of  her  pupils; 

117 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

she  talked  at  Margaret  Fuller's  transcendental 
club,  and  was  an  active  member  of  the  Radical 
or  Chestnut  Street  Club,  thirty  years  later; 
but  her  chief  distinction  was  the  introduction 
of  Froebel's  Kindergarten  teaching,  by  which 
she  well-nigh  revolutionized  primary  instruction 
in  America.  She  was  a  most  self -forgetful 
person,  and  her  scholars  became  devotedly 
attached  to  her. 

Her  sister  Mary  was  as  much  like  Elizabeth 
mentally  as  she  differed  from  her  in  figure  and 
general  appearance,  but  soon  after  this  she 
was  married  to  Horace  Mann  and  her  public 
activity  became  merged  in  that  of  her  husband, 
who  was  the  first  educator  of  his  time.  Sophia 
Peabody  read  poetry  and  other  fine  writings, 
and  acquired  a  fair  proficiency  in  drawing  and 
painting.  They  lived  what  was  then  called  the 
"higher  life,"  and  it  certainly  led  them  to  ex 
cellent  results. 

Shortly  before  the  publication  of  "  Twice 
Told  Tales,"  Elizabeth  Peabody  learned  that 
the  author  of  "The  Gentle  Boy,"  and  other 
stories  which  she  had  enjoyed  in  the  Token, 
lived  in  Salem,  and  that  the  name  was  Haw 
thorne.  She  immediately  jumped  to  the  con 
clusion  that  they  were  the  work  of  Miss  Elizabeth 
Hawthorne,  whom  she  had  known  somewhat 
in  earlier  days,  and  she  concluded  to  call  upon 
her  and  offer  her  congratulations.  When  in 
formed  by  Louisa  Hawthorne,  who  came  to 
her  in  the  parlor,  instead  of  the  elder  sister, 
that  "  The  Gentle  Boy  "  was  written  by  Na- 

118 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

thaniel,  Miss  Peabody  made  the  significant 
remark,  "  If  your  brother  can  do  work  like  that, 
he  has  no  right  to  be  idle"* — to  which  Miss 
Louisa  retorted,  it  is  to  be  hoped  with  some 
indignation,  that  her  brother  never  was  idle. 

It  is  only  too  evident  from  this  that  public 
opinion  in  Salem  had  already  decided  that 
Hawthorne  was  an  idle  fellow,  who  was  living 
on  his  female  relatives.  That  is  the  way  the 
world  judges — from  external  facts  without 
any  consideration  of  internal  causes  or  condi 
tions.  It  gratifies  the  vanity  of  those  who  are 
fortunate  and  prosperous,  to  believe  that  all 
men  have  an  equal  chance  in  the  race  of  life. 
Emerson  once  blamed  two  young  men  for  idle 
ness,  who  were  struggling  against  obstacles 
such  as  he  could  have  had  no  conception  of. 
Those  who  have  been  fortunate  from  the  cradle 
never  learn  what  life  is  really  like. 

The  spell,  however,  was  broken  and  the 
friendliness  of  Elizabeth  Peabody  found  a 
deeply  sympathetic  response  in  the  Hawthorne 
household.  Nathaniel  at  last  found  a  person 
who  expressed  a  genuine  and  heartfelt  appre 
ciation  of  his  work,  and  it  was  like  the  return  of 
the  sun  to  the  Arctic  explorer  after  his  long 
winter  night.  Rather  to  Miss  Peabody's  sur 
prise  he  and  his  sisters  soon  returned  her  call, 
and  visits  between  the  two  families  thereafter 
became  frequent. 


*  Lathrop,    168.      Miss    Peabody    would    seem    to    have 
narrated  this  to  him. 

119 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Sophia  Peabody  belonged  to  the  class  of 
young  women  for  whom  Shakespeare's  Ophelia 
serves  as  a  typical  example.  She  was  gentle, 
affectionate,  refined,  and  amiable  to  a  fault, — 
much  too  tender-hearted  for  this  rough  world, 
if  her  sister  Elizabeth  had  not  always  stood 
like  a  barrier  between  her  and  it. 

How  Hawthorne  might  have  acted  in  Hamlet's 
place  it  is  useless  to  surmise,  but  in  his  true 
nature  he  was  quite  the  opposite  of  Hamlet, — 
slow  and  cautious,  but  driven  onward  by  an 
inexorable  will.  If  Hamlet  had  possessed  half 
of  Hawthorne's  determination,  he  might  have 
broken  through  the  network  of  evil  conditions 
which  surrounded  him,  and  lived  to  make  Ophelia 
a  happy  woman.  It  was  only  necessary  to 
come  into  Hawthorne's  presence  in  order  to 
recognize  the  force  that  was  in  him. 

Sophia  Amelia  Peabody  was  born  September 
21,  1811,  so  that  at  the  time  of  which  we  are 
now  writing  she  was  twenty-five  years  of  age. 
Hawthorne  was  then  thirty-two,  when  a  man 
is  more  attractive  to  the  fair  sex  than  at  any 
other  time  of  life,  for  then  he  unites  the  freshness 
and  vigor  of  youth  with  sufficient  maturity  of 
judgment  to  inspire  confidence  and  trust.  Yet 
her  sister  Elizabeth  found  it  difficult  to  per 
suade  her  to  come  into  the  parlor  and  meet  the 
handsomest  man  in  Salem.  When  she  did 
come  she  evidently  attracted  Nathaniel  Haw 
thorne's  attention,  for,  although  she  said  little, 
he  looked  at  her  repeatedly  while  conversing 
with  her  sister.  It  may  not  have  been  an  instance 

120 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

of  love  at  first  sight, — which  may  happen  to 
any  young  man  at  a  dancing  party,  and  be 
forgotten  two  days  later, — but  it  was  something 
more  than  a  casual  interest.  On  his  second  or 
third  call  she  showed  him  a  sketch  she  had 
made  of  "the  gentle  boy,"  according  to  her 
idea  of  him,  and  the  subdued  tone  with  which 
he  received  it  plainly  indicated  that  he  was 
already  somewhat  under  her  influence.  Julian 
Hawthorne  writes  of  this :  * 

"  It  may  be  remarked  here,  that  Mrs.  Hawthorne  in  telling 
her  children,  many  years  afterwards,  of  these  first  meet 
ings  with  their  father,  used  to  say  that  his  presence, 
from  the  very  beginning,  exercised  so  strong  a  magnetic 
attraction  upon  her,  that  instinctively,  and  in  self-defence 
as  it  were,  she  drew  back  and  repelled  him.  The  power 
which  she  felt  in  him  alarmed  her;  she  did  not  understand 
what  it  meant,  and  was  only  able  to  feel  that  she  must 
resist. " 

Every  true  woman  feels  this  reluctance  at 
first  toward  a  suitor  for  her  hand,  but  a  sensitive 
young  lady  might  well  have  a  sense  of  awe  on 
finding  that  she  had  attracted  to  herself  such  a 
mundane  force  as  Hawthorne,  and  it  is  no  won 
der  that  this  first  impression  was  recollected 
throughout  her  life.  There  are  many  who 
would  have  refused  Hawthorne's  suit,  because 
they  felt  that  he  was  too  great  and  strong  for 
them,  and  it  is  to  the  honor  of  Sophia  Peabody 
that  she  was  not  only  attracted  by  the  magnet 
ism  of  Hawthorne,  but  finally  had  the  courage 
to  unite  herself  to  such  an  enigmatical  person. 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  179. 
121 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

We  also  obtain  a  glimpse  of  Hawthorne's 
side  of  this  courtship  from  a  letter  which  he 
wrote  to  Longfellow  in  June,  1837,  and  in  which 
he  says,"  I  have  now,  or  shall  soon  have  a  sharper 
spur  to  exertion,  which  I  lacked  at  an  earlier 
period;"  *  and  this  is  all  the  information  he 
has  vouchsafed  us  on  the  subject.  If  there  is 
anything  more  in  his  diary,  it  has  not  been 
given  to  the  public,  and  probably  never  will  be. 
A  number  of  letters  which  he  wrote  to  Miss 
Sophia  from  Boston,  or  Brook  Farm,  have 
been  published  by  his  son,  but  it  would  be 
neither  right  nor  judicious  to  introduce  them 
here. 

It  is,  however,  evident  from  the  above  that 
Hawthorne  was  already  engaged  in  June,  1837, 
but  his  engagement  long  remained  a  secret, 
for  three  excellent  reasons;  viz.,  his  slender 
means  of  support,  the  delicate  health  of  his 
betrothed,  and  the  disturbance  which  it  might 
create  in  the  Hawthorne  family.  The  last  did 
not  prove  so  serious  a  difficulty  as  he  seems  to 
have  imagined;  but  his  apprehensiveness  on 
that  point  many  another  could  justify  from 
personal  experience. f 

From  this  time  also  the  health  of  Sophia 
Peabody  steadily  improved,  nor  is  it  necessary 
to  account  for  it  by  any  magical  influence  on 
the  part  of  her  lover.  Her  trouble  was  plainly 
some  recondite  difficulty  of  the  circulation. 
The  heart  is  supposed  to  be  the  seat  of  the 

*Conway,  75. 
t  J-  Hawthorne,  i.  196. 
122 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

affections  because  mental  emotion  stimulates 
the  nervous  system  and  acts  upon  the  heart  as 
the  centre  of  all  organic  functions.  A  healthy 
natural  excitement  will  cause  the  heart  to  vibrate 
more  firmly  and  evenly;  but  an  unhealthy 
excitement,  like  fear  or  anger,  will  cause  it  to 
beat  in  a  rapid  and  uneven  manner.  Contra- 
rily,  despondency,  or  a  lethargic  state  of  mind, 
causes  the  movement  of  the  blood  to  slacken. 
The  happiness  of  love  is  thus  the  best  of  all 
stimulants  and  correctives  for  a  torpid  circu 
lation,  and  it  expands  the  whole  being  of  a 
woman  like  the  blossoming  of  a  flower  in  the 
sunshine.  From  the  time  of  her  betrothal, 
Sophia  Peabody's  headaches  became  less  and 
less  frequent,  until  they  ceased  altogether. 
The  true  seat  of  the  affections  is  in  the  mind. 
The  first  consideration  proved  to  be  a  more 
serious  matter.  If  Hawthorne  had  not  suc 
ceeded  in  earning  his  own  livelihood  by  literature 
so  far,  what  prospect  was  there  of  supporting 
a  wife  and  family  in  that  manner?  What  should 
he  do;  whither  should  he  turn?  He  continually 
turned  the  subject  over  in  his  mind,  without, 
however,  reaching  any  definite  conclusion. 
Xor  is  this  to  be  wondered  at.  If  the  ordinary 
avenues  of  human  industry  were  not  available 
to  him  as  a  college  graduate,  they  were  now 
permanently  closed.  A  man  in  his  predica 
ment  at  the  present  time  might  obtain  the 
position  of  librarian  in  one  of  our  inland  cities; 
but  such  places  are  few  and  the  applications  are 
many.  Bronson  Alcott  once  offered  his  services 

133 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

as  teacher  of  a  primary  school,  a  position  he 
might  have  filled  better  than  most,  for  its  one 
requisite  is  kindliness,  but  the  Concord  school 
committee  would  not  hear  of  it.  If  Hawthorne 
had  attempted  to  turn  pedagogue  he  might 
have  met  with  a  similar  experience. 

Con  way  remarks  very  justly  that  an  American 
author  could  not  be  expected  to  earn  his  own 
living  in  a  country  where  foreign  books  could 
be  pirated  as  they  were  in  the  United  States 
until  1890,  and  this  was  especially  true  during 
the  popularity  of  Dickens  and  George  Eliot. 
Dickens  was  the  great  humanitarian  writer  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  but  he  was  also  a  cari 
caturist  and  a  bohemian.  He  did  not  represent 
life  as  it  is,  but  with  a  certain  comical  oddity. 
As  an  author  he  is  to  Hawthorne  what  a  peony 
is  to  a  rose,  or  a  garnet  is  to  a  ruby;  but  ten 
persons  would  purchase  a  novel  of  Dickens 
when  one  would  select  the  "Twice  Told  Tales." 
Scott  and  Tennyson  are  exceptional  instances 
of  a  high  order  of  literary  work  which  also 
proved  fairly  remunerative;  but  they  do  not 
equal  Hawthorne  in  grace  of  diction  and  in 
the  rare  quality  of  his  thought, — whatever 
advantages  they  may  possess  in  other  respects. 
Thackeray  earned  his  living  by  his  pen,  but  it 
was  only  in  England  that  he  could  have  done 
this. 


124 


CHAPTER  VI 
PEGASUS  AT  THE  CART:  1839-1841 

HORATIO  BRIDGE'S  darn  was  washed  away 
in  the  spring  of  1837,  by  a  sudden  and  unpre 
cedented  rising  of  the  Androscoggin  River. 
Bridge  was  financially  ruined,  but  like  a  brave 
and  generous  young  man  he  did  not  permit  this 
stroke  of  evil  fortune,  severe  as  it  was,  to  oppress 
him  heavily,  and  Hawthorne  seems  to  have 
felt  no  shadow  of  it  during  his  visit  to  Augusta 
the  following  summer.  He  returned  to  Salem 
in  August  with  pleasanter  anticipations  than 
ever  before, — to  enjoy  the  society  of  his  fiancee, 
and  to  prepare  the  second  volume  of  "  Twice 
Told  Tales." 

The  course  of  Hawthorne's  life  during  the 
next  twenty  months  is  mostly  a  blank  to  us. 
He  would  seem  to  have  exerted  himself  to  escape 
from  the  monotone  in  which  he  had  been  living 
so  long,  but  of  his  efforts,  disappointments, 
and  struggles  against  the  giant  coils  of  Fate, 
there  is  no  report.  He  wrote  the  four  Province 
House  tales  as  a  send-off  to  his  second  volume, 
as  well  as  "The  Toll-Gatherer's  Day,"  "Foot 
prints  on  the  Seashore,"  "Snow-Flakes,"  and 
"Chippings  with  a  Chisel,"  which  are  to  be 
found  in  it.*  There  is  a  long  blank  in  Haw 
thorne's  diary  during  the  winter  of  1837-38, 

*  J.   Hawthorne,    176. 
125 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

which  may  be  owing  to  his  indifference  to  the 
outer  world  at  that  time,  but  more  likely  be 
cause  its  contents  have  not  yet  been  revealed 
to  us.  It  was  the  period  of  Cilley's  duel,  and 
what  Hawthorne's  reflections  were  on  that 
subject,  aside  from  the  account  which  he  wrote 
for  the  Democratic  Review,  would  be  highly 
interesting  now,  but  the  absence  of  any  reference 
to  it  is  significant,  and  there  is  no  published 
entry  in  his  diary  between  December  6,  1837, 
and  May  n,  1838. 

Horatio  Bridge  obtained  the  position  of  pay 
master  on  the  United  States  warship  "Cyane," 
which  arrived  at  Boston  early  in  June,  and 
on  the  1 6th  of  the  month  Hawthorne  went  to 
call  on  his  friend  in  his  new  quarters,  which  he 
found  to  be  pleasant  enough  in  their  narrow 
and  limited  way.  Bridge  returned  with  him  to 
Boston,  and  they  dined  together  at  the  Tremont 
House,  drinking  iced  champagne  and  claret  in 
pitchers, — which  latter  would  seem  to  have 
been  a  fashion  of  the  place.  Hawthorne's 
description  of  the  day  is  purely  external,  and 
he  tells  us  nothing  of  his  friend, — concerning 
whom  we  were  anxious  to  hear, — or  of  the  new 
life  on  which  he  had  entered. 

On  July  4,  his  thirty-fifth  birthday,  he  wrote 
a  microscopic  account  of  the  proceedings  on 
Salem  Common,  which  is  interesting  now,  but 
will  become  more  valuable  as  time  goes  on  and 
the  customs  of  the  American  people  change 
with  it.  The  object  of  these  detailed  pictorial 
studies,  which  not  only  remind  one  of  Diirer's 

126 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

drawings  but  of  Carlyle's  local  descriptions 
(when  he  uses  simple  English  and  does  not  fly 
off  into  recondite  comparisons),  is  not  clearly 
apparent;  but  the  artist  has  instincts  of  his 
own,  like  a  vine  which  swings  in  the  wind  and 
seizes  upon  the  first  tree  that  its  tendrils  come 
into  contact  with.  We  sometimes  wish  that, 
as  in  the  case  of  Bridge  and  his  warship,  they  were 
not  so  objective  and  external,  and  that,  like 
Carlyle,  he  would  throw  more  of  himself  into 
them. 

On  July  27,  Hawthorne  started  on  an  expedi 
tion  to  the  Berkshire  Hills,  by  way  of  Worcester, 
remaining  there  nearly  till  the  first  of  September, 
and  describing  the  scenery,  the  people  he  met 
by  the  way,  and  the  commencement  at  Wil 
liams  College,  which  then  took  place  in  the 
middle  of  August,  in  his  customary  accurate 
manner.  He  has  given  a  full  and  connected 
account  of  his  travels;  so  full  that  we  wonder 
how  he  found  time  to  write  to  Miss  Sophia 
Peabody.  He  would  seem  to  have  been  entirely 
alone,  and  to  have  travelled  mainly  by  stage. 
On  the  route  from  Pittsfield  to  North  Adams 
he  notices  the  sunset,  and  describes  it  in  these 
simple  terms  :* 

"  After  or  about  sunset  there  was  a  heavy 
shower,  the  thunder  rumbling  round  and  round 
the  mountain  wall,  and  the  clouds  stretching 
from  rampart  to  rampart.  When  it  abated 
the  clouds  in  all  parts  of  the  visible  heavens 
were  tinged  with  glory  from  the  west;  some 

*  American  Note-book,   130. 
127 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

that  hung  low  being  purple  and  gold,  while 
the  higher  ones  were  gray.  The  slender  curve 
of  the  new  moon  was  also  visible,  brightening 
amidst  the  fading  brightness  of  the  sunny  part 
of  the  sky." 

At  North  Adams  he  takes  notice  of  one  of 
the  Select-men,  and  gives  this  account  of  him:* 

"One  of  the  most  sensible  men  in  this  village 
is  a  plain,  tall,  elderly  person,  who  is  over 
seeing  the  mending  of  a  road, — humorous, 
intelligent,  with  much  thought  about  matters 
and  things;  and  while  at  work  he  had  a  sort 
of  dignity  in  handling  the  hoe  or  crow-bar, 
which  shows  him  to  be  the  chief.  In  the  even 
ing  he  sits  under  the  stoop,  silent  and  observant 
from  under  the  brim  of  his  hat;  but,  occasion 
suiting,  he  holds  an  argument  about  the  benefit 
or  otherwise  of  manufactories  or  other  things. 
A  simplicity  characterizes  him  more  than  ap 
pertains  to  most  Yankees." 

He  did  not  return  to  Salem  until  September 
24.  A  month  later  he  was  at  the  Tremont 
House  in  Boston,  looking  out  of  the  windows 
toward  Beacon  Street,  which  may  have  served 
him  for  an  idea  in  "The  Blithedale  Romance." 
After  this  there  are  no  entries  published  from 
his  diary  till  the  following  spring,  so  that  the 
manner  in  which  he  occupied  himself  during 
the  winter  of  1838-39  will  have  to  be  left  to 
the  imagination.  On  April  27,  1839,  he  wrote 
a  letter  to  Miss  Sophia  Peabody  from  Boston, 
in  which  he  says: 

*  American  Note-book,  153. 
128 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

"  I  feel  pretty  secure  against  intruders,  for 
the  bad  weather  will  defend  me  from  foreign 
invasion;  and  as  to  Cousin  Haley,  he  and  I 
had  a  bitter  political  dispute  last  evening,  at 
the  close  of  which  he  went  to  bed  in  high  dud 
geon,  and  probably  will  not  speak  to  me  these 
three  days.  Thus  you  perceive  that  strife  and 
wrangling,  as  well  as  east  winds  and  rain,  are 
the  methods  of  a  kind  Providence  to  promote 
my  comfort, — which  would  not  have  been  so 
well  secured  in  any  other  way.  Six  or  seven 
hours  of  cheerful  solitude!  But  I  will  not  be 
alone.  I  invite  your  spirit  to  be  with  me, — 
at  any  hour  and  as  many  hours  as  you  please, 
but  especially  at  the  twilight  hour  before  I 
light  my  lamp.  I  bid  you  at  that  particular 
time,  because  I  can  see  visions  more  vividly 
in  the  dusky  glow  of  firelight  than  either  by 
daylight  or  lamplight.  Come,  and  let  me  renew 
my  spell  against  headache  and  other  direful 
effects  of  the  east  wind.  How  I  wish  I  could 
give  you  a  portion  of  my  insensibility!  and 
yet  I  should  be  almost  afraid  of  some  radical 
transformation,  were  I  to  produce  a  change 
in  that  respect.  If  you  cannot  grow  plump 
and  rosy  and  tough  and  vigorous  without  being 
changed  into  another  nature,  then  I  do  think, 
for  this  short  life,  you  had  better  remain  just 
what  you  are.  Yes;  but  you  will  be  the  same 
to  me,  because  we  have  met  in  eternity,  and 
there  our  intimacy  was  formed.  So  get  well 
as  soon  as  you  possibly  can. " 

This  statement  deserves  consideration  under 

a  129 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

two  headings;  and  the  last  shall  be  first,  and 
the  first  shall  be  last. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  accounts  in  Haw 
thorne's  diary  are  for  the  most  part  of  a  dis 
passionate  objective  character,  as  if  he  had 
come  down  from  the  moon  to  take  an  observa 
tion  of  mundane  affairs.  His  letters  to  Miss 
Peabody  were  also  dispassionate,  but  strongly 
subjective,  and,  like  the  one  just  quoted,  mainly 
evolved  from  his  imagination,  like  orchids 
living  in  the  air.  It  was  also  about  this  time 
that  Carlyle  wrote  to  Emerson  concerning  the 
Dial  that  it  seemed  "like  an  unborn  human 
soul. "  The  orchid  imagination  was  an  influence 
of  the  time,  penetrating  everywhere  like  an  ether. 

In  the  opening  sentences  in  this  letter,  Haw 
thorne  comes  within  an  inch  of  disclosing  his 
political  opinions,  and  yet  provokingly  fails 
to  do  so.  There  is  nothing  about  the  man  con 
cerning  which  we  are  so  much  in  the  dark,  and 
which  we  should  so  much  like  to  know,  as  this ; 
and  it  is  certain  from  this  letter  that  he  held 
very  decided  opinions  on  political  subjects  and 
could  defend  them  with  a  good  deal  of  energy. 
On  one  occasion  when  Hawthorne  was  asked 
why  he  was  a  Democrat,  he  replied,  "  Because 
I  live  in  a  democratic  country,"  which  was,  of 
course,  simply  an  evasion;  and  such  were  the 
answers  which  he  commonly  gave  to  all  inter 
rogatories.  His  proclivities  were  certainly  not 
democratic;  but  the  greater  the  tenacity  with 
which  a  man  holds  his  opinions,  the  less  inclined 
he  feels  to  discuss  them  with  others.  The 

130 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Boston  aristocracy  now  vote  the  Democratic 
ticket  out  of  opposition  to  the  dominant  party 
in  Massachusetts,  and  Hawthorne  may  have 
done  so  for  a  similar  reason. 

Hawthorne  was  now  a  weigher  and  gauger 
in  the  Boston  Custom  House,  one  of  the  most 
laborious  positions  in  the  government  service. 
The  defalcation  of  Swartwout  with  over  a  million 
of  dollars  from  the  New  York  customs'  receipts 
had  forced  upon  President  Van  Buren  the 
importance  of  filling  such  posts  with  honorable 
men,  instead  of  political  shysters,  and  Bancroft, 
though  a  rather  narrow  historian,  was  a  gentle 
man  and  a  scholar.  He  was  the  right  man  to 
appreciate  Hawthorne,  but  whether  he  bestowed 
this  place  upon  him  of  his  own  accord,  or  through 
the  ulterior  agency  of  Franklin  Pierce,  we  are 
not  informed.  It  is  quite  possible  that  Eliza 
beth  Peabody  had  a  hand  in  the  case,  for  she 
was  always  an  indefatigable  petitioner  for  the 
benefit  of  the  needy,  and  had  opportunities 
for  meeting  Bancroft  in  Boston  society.  His 
kindness  to  Hawthorne  was  at  least  some  com 
pensation  for  having  originated  the  most  ill- 
favored  looking  public  building  in  the  city.* 

Hawthorne's  salary  was  twelve  hundred  dol 
lars  a  year, — fully  equal  to  eighteen  hundred 
at  the  present  time, — and  his  position  appears 
to  have  been  what  is  now  called  a  store-keeper. 
He  fully  earned  his  salary.  He  had  charge  and 
oversight  of  all  the  dutiable  imports  that  came 

*  The  present  Boston  Custom  House.  George  S.  Hillard 
called  it  an  architectural  monstrosity. 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

to  Long  Wharf,  the  most  important  in  the  city, 
and  was  obliged  to  keep  an  account  of  all  duti 
able  articles  which  were  received  there.  He 
had  to  superintend  personally  the  unloading 
of  vessels,  and  although  in  some  instances  this 
was  not  unpleasant,  he  was  constantly  receiving 
shiploads  of  soft  coal, — Sidney  or  Pictou  coal, — 
which  is  the  dirtiest  stuff  in  the  world ;  it  cannot 
be  touched  without  raising  a  dusty  vapor  which 
settles  in  the  eyes,  nose,  and  mouth,  and  inside 
the  shirt-collar.  He  counted  every  basketful 
that  was  brought  ashore,  and  his  position  on 
such  occasions  was  to  be  envied  only  by  the 
sooty  laborers  who  handled  that  commodity. 
We  wonder  what  the  frequenters  of  Long  Wharf 
thought  of  this  handsome,  poetic-looking  man 
occupied  in  such  a  business. 

Yet  he  appreciated  the  value  of  this  Spartan 
discipline, — the  inestimable  value  of  being  for 
once  in  his  life  brought  down  to  hard-pan  and 
the  plain  necessities  of  life.  The  juice  of  worm 
wood  is  bitter,  but  it  is  also  strengthening.  On 
July  3,  1839,  he  wrote:  * 

"I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  I  am  unhappy 
or  discontented,  for  this  is  not  the  case.  My 
life  only  is  a  burden  in  the  same  way  that  it  is 
to  every  toilsome  man,  and  mine  is  a  healthy 
weariness,  such  as  needs  only  a  night's  sleep 
to  remove  it.  But  from  henceforth  forever  I 
shall  be  entitled  to  call  the  sons  of  toil  my 
brethren,  and  shall  know  how  to  sympathize 
with  them,  seeing  that  I  likewise  have  risen 

*  American  Note-book. 
132 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

at  the  dawn,  and  borne  the  fervor  of  the  midday 
sun,  nor  turned  my  heavy  footsteps  homeward 
till  eventide.  Years  hence,  perhaps,  the  ex 
perience  that  my  heart  is  acquiring  now  will 
flow  out  in  truth  and  wisdom. " 

This  is   one  of  the    noblest   passages  in   his 
writings. 

On  August  27  he  notices  the  intense  heat  in 
the  centre  of  the  city,  although  it  is  somewhat 
cooler  on  the  wharves.  At  this  time  Emerson 
may  have  been  composing  his  ''Wood  Notes" 
or  " Threnody"  in  the  cool  pine  groves  of  Con 
cord.  Such  is  the  difference  between  inheriting 
twenty  thousand  dollars  and  two  thousand. 
Hawthorne  lived  in  Boston  at  such  a  boarding- 
place  as  Doctor  Holmes  describes  in  the  "Auto 
crat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,"  and  for  all  we 
know  it  may  have  been  the  same  one.  He  lived 
economically,  reading  and  writing  to  Miss 
Peabody  in  the  evening,  and  rarely  going  to 
the  theatre  or  other  entertainments, — a  life 
like  that  of  a  store  clerk  whose  salary  only 
suffices  for  his  board  and  clothing.  George 
Bancroft  was  kindly  disposed  toward  him,  and 
would  have  introduced  Hawthorne  into  any  so 
ciety  that  he  could  have  wished  to  enter;  but 
Hawthorne,  then  and  always,  declined  to  be 
lionized.  Hawthorne  made  but  one  friend  in 
Boston  during  this  time,  and  that  one,  George  S. 
Hillard,  a  most  faithful  and  serviceable  friend, 
—not  only  to  Hawthorne  during  his  life,  but 
afterwards  as  a  trustee  for  his  family,  and 
equally  kind  and  helpful  to  them  in  their 

133 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

bereavement,  which  is  more  than  could  be 
said  of  all  his  friends, — especially  of  Pierce. 
Hillard  belonged  to  the  brilliant  coterie  of  Cam 
bridge  literary  men,  which  included  Longfellow, 
Sumner  and  Felton.  He  was  a  lawyer,  poli 
tician,  editor,  orator  and  author;  at  this  time, 
or  shortly  afterward,  Sumner's  law  partner; 
one  of  the  most  kindly  sympathetic  men,  with 
a  keen  appreciation  of  all  that  is  finest  in  art 
and  literature,  but  somewhat  lacking  in  firm 
ness  and  independence  of  character.  His  "Six 
Months  in  Italy, "  written  in  the  purest  English, 
long  served  as  a  standard  work  for  American 
travellers  in  that  ideal  land,  and  his  rather 
unsymmetrical  figure  only  made  the  graces  of  his 
oratory  more  conspicuous. 

Hawthorne  kept  at  his  work  through  summer's 
heat  and  winter's  cold.  On  February  n,  1840, 
he  wrote  to  his  fiancee: 

' '  I  have  been  measuring  coal  all  day,  on  board  of  a 
black  little  British  schooner,  in  a  dismal  dock  at  the  north 
end  of  the  city.  Most  of  the  time  I  paced  the  deck  to  keep 
myself  warm.  . 

.  .  .  Sometimes  I  descended  into  the  dirty  little 
cabin  of  the  schooner,  and  warmed  myself  by  a  red-hot 
stove  among  biscuit  barrels,  pots  and  kettles,  sea  chests, 
and  innumerable  lumber  of  all  sorts, — my  olfactories,  mean 
while,  being  greatly  refreshed  by  the  odor  of  a  pipe,  which 
the  captain  or  some  of  his  crew  was  smoking." 

One  would  have  to  go  to  Dante's  "Inferno" 
to  realize  a  situation  more  thoroughly  disagree 
able  ;  yet  the  very  pathos  of  Hawthorne's  em 
ployment  served  to  inspire  him  with  elevated 

134 


HAWTHORNE.  FROM  THE  PORTRAIT  BY  CHARLES  OSGOOD  IN  1840.  IN 
THE  POSSESSION  OF  MRS.  RICHARD  C.  MANNING,  SALEM,  MASS.  FROM 
NEGATIVE  IN  POSSESSION  OF  AND  OWNED  BY  FRANK  COUSIN,  SALEM 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

thoughts  and  beautiful  reflections.  His  letters 
are  full  of  aerial  fancies.  He  notices  what  a 
beautiful  day  it  was  on  April  18,  1840,  and 
regrets  that  he  cannot  "  fling  himself  on  a  gentle 
breeze  and  be  blown  away  into  the  country." 
April  30  is  another  beautiful  day, — "a  real 
happiness  to  live;  if  he  had  been  a  mere  veg 
etable,  a  hawthorn  bush,  he  would  have  felt 
its  influence."  He  goes  to  a  picture-gallery  in 
the  Athenaeum,  but  only  mentions  seeing  two 
paintings  by  Sarah  Clarke.  He  returns  to  Salem 
in  October,  and  writes  in  his  own  chamber  the 
passage  already  quoted,  in  which  he  mourns 
the  lonely  years  of  his  youth,  and  the  long, 
long  waiting  for  appreciation,  "while  he  felt 
the  life  chilling  in  his  veins  and  sometimes  it 
seemed  as  if  he  were  already  in  the  grave;" 
but  an  early  return  to  his  post  gives  him  brighter 
thoughts.  He  takes  notice  of  the  magnificent 
black  and  yellow  butterflies  that  have  strangely 
come  to  Long  Wharf,  as  if  seeking  to  sail  to 
other  climes  since  the  last  flower  had  faded. 
Mr.  Bancroft  has  appointed  him  to  suppress  an 
insurrection  among  the  government  laborers, 
and  he  writes  to  Miss  Sophia  Peabody : 

"I  was  not  at  the  end  of  Long  Wharf  to-day,  but  in  a  dis 
tant  region, — my  authority  having  been  put  in  requisition 
to  quell  a  rebellion  of  the  captain  and  'gang'  of  shovellers 
aboard  a  coal-vessel.  I  would  you  could  have  beheld  the 
awful  sternness  of  my  visage  and  demeanor  in  the  execution 
of  this  momentous  duty.  Well, — I  have  conquered  the 
rebels,  and  proclaimed  an  amnesty;  so  to-morrow  I  shall 
return  to  that  paradise  of  measurers,  the  end  of  Long 
Wharf, — not  to  my  former  salt-ship,  she  being  now  dis- 

135 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

charged,  but  to  another,  which  will   probably  employ   me 
well-nigh  a  fortnight  longer." 

A  month  later  we  meet  with  this  ominous  re 
mark  in  his  diary : 

"I  was  invited  to  dine  at  Mr.  Bancroft's  yesterday  with 
Miss  Margaret  Fuller;  but  Providence  had  given  me  some 
business  to  do,  for  which  I  was  very  thankful." 

Had  Hawthorne  already  encountered  this 
remarkable  woman  with  the  feminine  heart  and 
masculine  mind,  and  had  he  already  conceived 
that  aversion  for  her  which  is  almost  painfully 
apparent  in  his  Italian  diary?  Certainly  in 
many  respects  they  were  antipodes. 

The  Whig  party  came  into  power  on  March 
4,  1841,  with  "Tippecanoe"  for  a  figure-head 
and  Daniel  Webster  as  its  conductor  of  the 
''grand  orchestra."  A  month  later  Bancroft 
was  removed,  and  Hawthorne  went  with  him, 
not  at  all  regretful  to  depart .  I  n  fact ,  he  had  come 
to  feel  that  he  could  not  endure  the  Custom 
House,  or  at  least  his  particular  share  of  it, 
any  longer.  One  object  he  had  in  view  in  ac 
cepting  the  position  was,  to  obtain  practical 
experience,  and  this  he  certainly  did  in  a  rough 
and  unpleasant  manner.  The  experience  of  a 
routine  office,  however,  is  not  like  that  of  a 
broker  who  has  goods  to  sell  and  who  must  dis 
pose  of  them  to  the  best  advantage,  in  order  to 
keep  his  reputation  at  high-water  mark;  nor 
is  it  like  the  experience  of  a  young  doctor  or  a 
lawyer  struggling  to  obtain  a  practice.  Those 
are  the  men  who  know  what  life  actually  is; 

136 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

and  it  is  this  thoroughness  of  experience  which 
makes  the  chief  difference  between  a  Dante 
and  a  Tennyson. 

These  reflections  lead  directly  to  Hawthorne's 
casual  and  oft-repeated  commentary  on  Ameri 
can  politicians.  He  wrote  March  15: 

"I  do  detest  all  offices — all,  at  least,  that 
are  held  on  a  political  tenure.  And  I  want 
nothing  to  do  with  politicians.  Their  hearts 
wither  away,  and  die  out  of  their  bodies.  Their 
consciences  are  turned  to  india-rubber,  or  to 
some  substance  as  black  as  that,  and  which 
will  stretch  as  much.  One  thing,  if  no  more, 
I  have  gained  by  my  custom-house  experience, 
— to  know  a  politician.  "  * 

This  seems  rather  severe,  but  at  the  time 
when  Hawthorne  wrote  it,  American  politics 
were  on  the  lowest  plane  of  demagogism.  It 
was  the  inevitable  result  of  the  spoils-of-office 
system,  and  the  meanest  species  of  the  class 
were  the  ward  politicians  who  received  small 
government  offices  in  return  for  services  in  can 
vassing  ignorant  foreign  voters.  They  were 
naturally  coarse,  hardened  adventurers,  and 
it  was  such  that  Hawthorne  chiefly  came  in 
contact  with  in  his  official  business.  Cleon, 
the  brawling  tanner  of  Athens,  has  reappeared 
in  every  representative  government  since  his 
time,  and  plays  his  clownish  part  with  multi 
farious  variations;  but  it  is  to  little  purpose 
that  we  deride  the  men  who  govern  us,  for 

*  American  Note-book,  i.  220. 
137 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

they  are  what  we  and  our  institutions  have  made 
them.  If  we  want  better  representatives,  we 
must  mend  our  own  ways  and  especially  purge 
ourselves  of  political  cant  and  national  vanity, 
—which  is  the  food  that  ward  politicians  grow 
fat  on.  The  profession  of  a  politician  is  based 
on  instability,  and  he  cannot  acquire,  as  matters 
now  stand,  the  solidity  of  character  that  we 
look  for  in  other  professions. 

So  far,  however,  was  Hawthorne  at  this 
juncture  from  considering  men  and  things 
critically,  that  he  closes  the  account  of  his  first 
government  experience  in  this  rather  optimistic 
manner : 

"Old  Father  Time  has  gone  onward  some 
what  less  heavily  than  is  his  wont  when  I  am 
imprisoned  within  the  walls  of  the  Custom-house. 
My  breath  had  never  belonged  to  anybody 
but  me.  It  came  fresh  from  the  ocean  . 

.  It  was  exhilarating  to  see  the  vessels, 
how  they  bounded  over  the  waves,  while  a  sheet 
of  foam  broke  out  around  them.  I  found  a 
good  deal  of  enjoyment,  too,  in  the  busy  scene 
around  me.  It  pleased  me  to  think  that  I  also 
had  a  part  to  act  in  the  material  and  tangible 
business  of  this  life,  and  that  a  portion  of  all 
this  industry  could  not  have  gone  on  without 
my  presence. "  * 

When  Hawthorne  philosophizes  it  is  not  in 
old  threadbare  proverbs  or  Orphic  generali 
ties,  but  always  specifically  and  to  the  point. 

*  American  Note-book,  i.   230. 
138 


CHAPTER  VII 
HAWTHORNE  AS  A  SOCIALIST:  1841-1842 

WHO  can  compute  the  amount  of  mischief 
that  Fourier  has  done,  and  those  well-meaning 
but  inexperienced  dreamers  who  have  followed 
after  him?  A  Fourth-of-July  fire-cracker  once 
consumed  the  half  of  a  large  city.  The  boy 
who  exploded  it  had  no  evil  intentions;  neither 
did  Fourier  and  other  speculators  in  philan 
thropy  contemplate  what  might  be  the  effect 
of  their  doctrines  on  minds  actuated  by  the 
lowest  and  most  inevitable  wants.  Wendell 
Phillips,  in  the  most  brilliant  of  his  orations, 
said:  "The  track  of  God's  lightning  is  a  straight 
line  from  justice  to  iniquity,"  and  one  might 
have  said  to  Phillips,  in  his  later  years,  that 
there  is  in  the  affairs  of  men  a  straight  line 
from  infatuation  to  destruction.  In  what  degree 
Fourier  was  responsible  for  the  effusion  of  blood 
in  Paris  in  the  spring  of  1871  it  is  not  possible 
to  determine;  but  the  relation  of  Rousseau  to 
the  first  French  revolution  is  not  more  certain. 
Fate  is  the  spoken  word  which  cannot  be  re 
called,  and  who  can  tell  the  good  and  evil  con 
sequences  that  lie  hidden  in  it?  The  proper 
cure  for  socialism,  in  educated  minds,  would 
be  a  study  of  the  law.  There  we  discover  what 
a  wonderful  mechanism  is  the  present  organiza 
tion  of  society,  and  how  difficult  it  would  be  to 
reconstruct  this,  if  it  once  were  overturned. 

139 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

As  society  is  constituted  at  present,  the  honest 
and  industrious  are  always  more  or  less  at  the 
mercy  of  the  vicious  and  indolent,  and  the  only 
protection  against  this  lies  in  the  right  of  in 
dividual  ownership.  In  a  general  community 
of  goods,  there  might  be  some  means  of  prevent 
ing  or  punishing  flagrant  misdemeanors,  but 
what  protection  could  there  be  against  indolence  ? 
Those  who  were  ready  and  willing  to  work 
would  have  to  bear  all  the  burdens  of  society. 
In  order  that  an  idea  should  take  external 
or  concrete  form  it  has  to  be  married,  as  it  were, 
to  some  desire  or  tendency  in  the  individual. 
Reverend  George  Ripley  had  become  imbued 
with  Fourierism  through  his  studies  of  French 
philosophy,  but  he  had  also  been  brought  up 
on  a  farm,  and  preferred  the  fresh  air  and  vigorous 
exercise  of  that  mode  of  life  to  city  preaching. 
He  was  endowed  with  a  strong  constitution  and 
possessed  of  an  independent  fortune,  and  his 
aristocratic  wife,  more  devoted  than  women  of 
that  class  are  usually,  sympathized  with  his 
plans,  and  was  prepared  to  follow  him  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth.  He  not  only  felt  great  enthusi 
asm  for  the  project  but  was  capable  of  inspiring 
others  with  it.  There  were  many  socialistic 
experiments  undertaken  about  that  time,  but 
George  Ripley 's  was  the  only  one  that  has 
acquired  a  historical  value.  It  is  much  to  his 
credit  that  he  gave  the  scheme  a  thorough 
trial,  and  by  carrying  it  out  to  a  logical  con 
clusion  proved  its  radical  impracticability. 
Such  a  failure  is  more  valuable  than  the  successes 

140 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

of  a  hundred  men  who  merely  make  their  own 
fortunes  and  leave  no  legacy  of  experience 
that  can  benefit  the  human  race. 

It  must  have  been  Elizabeth  Peabody  who 
persuaded  Hawthorne  to  enlist  in  the  Brook  Farm 
enterprise.  She  wrote  a  paper  for  the  Dial  * 
on  the  subject,  explaining  the  object  of  the 
West  Roxbury  community  and  holding  forth 
the  prospect  of  the  "higher  life"  which  could 
be  enjoyed  there.  Hawthorne  was  in  himself 
the  very  antipodes  of  socialism,  and  it  was 
part  of  the  irony  of  his  life  that  he  should  have 
embarked  in  such  an  experiment;  but  he  in 
vested  a  thousand  dollars  in  it,  which  he  had 
saved  from  his  Custom  House  salary,  and  was 
one  of  the  first  on  the  ground.  What  he  really 
hoped  for  from  it — as  we  learn  by  his  letters 
to  Miss  Sophia  Peabody — was  a  means  of  gain 
ing  his  daily  bread,  with  leisure  to  accomplish 
a  fair  amount  of  writing,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  enter  into  such  society  as  might  be  congenial 
to  his  future  consort.  It  seemed  reasonable 
to  presume  this,  and  yet  the  result  did  not 
correspond  to  it.  He  went  to  West  Roxbury 
on  April  12,  1841,  and  as  it  happened  in  a  driving 
northeast  snow-storm, — an  unpropitious  be 
ginning,  of  which  he  has  given  a  graphic 
account  in  "The  Blithedale  Romance." 

At  first  he  liked  his  work  at  the  Farm.  The 
novelty  of  it  proved  attractive  to  him.  On  May 
3  he  wrote  a  letter  to  his  sister  Louisa,  which 

*  Dial,  ii.  361. 
141 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

reflects  the  practical  nature  of  his  new  sur 
roundings;  and  it  must  be  confessed  that  this 
is  a  refreshing  change  from  the  sublunary 
considerations  at  his  Boston  boarding-house. 
He  has  already  "  learned  to  plant  potatoes,  to 
milk  cows,  and  to  cut  straw  and  hay  for  the 
cattle,  and  does  various  other  mighty  wrorks. " 
He  has  gained  strength  wonderfully,  and  can 
do  a  day's  work  without  the  slightest  incon 
venience;  wears  a  tremendous  pair  of  cowhide 
boots.  He  goes  to  bed  at  nine,  and  gets  up  at 
half-past  four  to  sound  the  rising-horn, — much 
too  early  for  a  socialistic  paradise,  where  human 
nature  is  supposed  to  find  a  pleasant  as  well 
as  a  salutary  existence.  George  Ripley  would 
seem  to  be  driving  the  wedge  in  by  the  larger 
end.  Hawthorne  is  delighted  with  the  topo 
graphical  aspect,  and  writes: 

"This  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  places  I 
ever  saw  in  my  life,  and  as  secluded  as  if  it  were 
a  hundred  miles  from  any  city  or  village.  There 
are  woods,  in  which  we  can  ramble  all  day  with 
out  meeting  anybody  or  scarcely  seeing  a  house. 
Our  house  stands  apart  from  the  main  road, 
so  that  we  are  not  troubled  even  with  passengers 
looking  at  us.  Once  in  a  while  we  have  a  tran 
scendental  visitor,  such  as  Mr.  Alcott;  but 
generally  we  pass  whole  days  without  seeing 
a  single  face  save  those  of  the  brethren.  The 
whole  fraternity  eat  together ;  and  such  a  delect 
able  way  of  life  has  never  been  seen  on  earth 
since  the  days  of  the  early  Christians."  * 

*  J.    Hawthorne,   i.    228. 
142 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

From  Louisa  Hawthorne's  reply,  it  may  be 
surmised  that  his  family  did  not  altogether 
approve  of  the  Brook  Farm  venture,  perhaps 
because  it  withdrew  him  from  his  own  home  at 
a  time  when  they  had  looked  with  fond  expecta 
tion  for  his  return;  and  here  we  have  a  glimpse 
into  the  beautiful  soul  of  this  younger  sister, 
otherwise  so  little  known  to  us.  Elizabeth  is 
sceptical  of  its  ultimate  success,  but  Louisa  is 
fearful  that  he  may  work  too  hard  and  wants 
him  to  take  good  care  of  himself.  She  is  delighted 
with  the  miniature  of  him,  which  they  have  lately 
received:  "It  has  one  advantage  over  the 
original, — I  can  make  it  go  with  me  where  I 
choose!" 

Louisa  wrote  another  warm  and  beautiful 
letter  on  June  n,  recalling  the  days  when  they 
used  to  go  fishing  together  on  Lake  Sebago, 
and  adds: 

"Elizabeth  Cleveland  says  she  saw  Mr.  George  Bradford 
in  Lowell  last  winter,  and  he  told  her  he  was  going  to  be 
associated  with  you;  but  they  say  his  mind  misgave  him 
terribly  when  the  time  came  for  him  to  go  to  Roxbury, 
and  whether  to  make  such  a  desperate  step  or  not  he  could 
not  tell."  * 

George  P.  Bradford  was  the  masculine  com 
plement  to  Elizabeth  Peabody — flitting  across 
the  paths  of  Emerson  and  Hawthorne  through 
out  their  lives.  His  name  appears  con 
tinually  in  the  biographies  of  that  time, 
but  future  generations  would  never  know  the 
sort  of  man  he  was,  but  for  Louisa's  amiable 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  232. 
143 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

commentary.  He  appeared  at  Brook  Farm  a 
few  days  later,  and  became  one  of  George  Rip- 
ley's  strongest  and  most  faithful  adherents. 
He  is  the  historian  of  the  West  Roxbury  com 
munity,  and  late  in  life  the  editor  of  the  Century 
asked  him  to  write  a  special  account  of  it  for 
that  periodical.  Bradford  did  so,  and  received 
one  hundred  dollars  in  return  for  his  manu 
script;  but  it  never  was  published,  presumably 
because  it  was  too  original  for  the  editor's 
purpose. 

Is  it  possible  that  Hawthorne  put  on  a  good 
face  for  this  letter  to  his  sister,  in  order  to  keep 
up  appearances;  or  was  it  like  the  common 
experience  of  music  and  drawing  teachers  that 
the  first  lessons  are  the  best  performed;  or  did 
he  really  have  some  disagreement  with  Ripley, 
like  that  which  he  represents  in  "  The  Blithedale 
Romance"  ?  The  last  is  the  more  probable, 
although  we  do  not  hear  of  it  otherwise.  Spring 
is  the  least  agreeable  season  for  farming,  with 
its  muddy  soil,  its  dressing  the  ground,  its  weeds 
to  be  kept  down  and  its  insects  to  be  kept  off. 
After  the  first  week  of  June,  the  work  becomes 
much  pleasanter;  and  the  harvesting  is  delight 
ful, — stacking  the  grain,  picking  the  fruit, — 
with  the  cheery  wood  fires,  so  restful  to  mind 
and  body.  Yet  we  find  on  August  12  that 
Hawthorne  had  become  thoroughly  disenchanted 
with  his  Arcadian  life,  although  he  admits  that 
the  labors  of  the  farm  were  not  so  pressing  as 
they  had  been.  Ten  days  later,  he  refers  to 
having  spent  the  better  part  of  a  night  with 

144 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

one  of  his  co-workers,  "who  was  quite  out  of 
his  wits"  and  left  the  community  next  day. 
He  then  continues  in  his  diary :  * 

"  It  is  extremely  doubtful  whether  Mr.  Ripley 
will  succeed  in  locating  his  community  on  the 

farm.  He  can  bring  Mr.  E to  no  terms, 

and  the  more  they  talk  about  the  matter,  the 
further  they  appear  to  be  from  a  settlement. 
We  must  form  other  plans  for  ourselves;  for 
I  can  see  few  or  no  signs  that  Providence  pur 
poses  to  give  us  a  home  here.  I  am  weary, 
weary,  thrice  weary,  of  waiting  so  many  ages. 
Whatever  may  be  my  gifts,  I  have  not  hitherto 
shown  a  single  one  that  may  avail  to  gather 
gold." 

Here  are  already  three  disaffected  personages, 
desirous  of  escaping  from  an  earthly  paradise. 
Mr.  Ripley  has  by  no  means  an  easy  row  to 
hoe.  Yet  he  keeps  on  ploughing  steadily  through 
his  difficulties,  as  he  did  through  the  soil  of 
his  meadows.  In  September  we  find  Hawthorne 
at  Salem,  and  on  the  third  he  writes:  f 

"  But  really  I  should  judge  it  to  be  twenty 
years  since  I  left  Brook  Farm;  and  I  take  this 
to  be  one  proof  that  my  life  there  was  unnatural 
and  unsuitable,  and  therefore  an  unreal  one. 
It  already  looks  like  a  dream  behind  me.  The 
real  Me  was  never  an  associate  of  the  com 
munity:  there  has  been  a  spectral  appearance 
there,  sounding  the  horn  at  daybreak,  and 

*  American  Note-book,  ii.  15. 
f  American  Note-book,  ii.  16. 
10  145 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

milking  the  cows,  and  hoeing  potatoes,  and 
raking  hay,  toiling  in  the  sun,  and  doing  me 
the  honor  to  assume  my  name.  But  this  spectre 
was  not  myself." 

This  idea  of  himself  as  a  spectre  seems  to 
have  accompanied  him  much  in  the  way  that  the 
daemon  did  Socrates,  and  to  have  served  in  a 
similar  manner  as  a  warning  to  him.  He  left  Brook 
Farm  almost  exactly  as  he  describes  himself 
doing,  in  "The  Blithedale  Romance,"  and  he 
returned  again  on  the  twenty-second,  but  the 
brilliant  woodland  carnival  which  he  describes, 
both  in  his  "  Note-book  "  and  in  "  The  Blithedale 
Romance,"  did  not  take  place  there  until  Sep 
tember  28.  It  was  a  masquerade  in  which  Mar 
garet  Fuller  and  Emerson  appeared  as  invited 
guests,  and  held  a  meeting  of  the  Transcenden 
tal  club  "sub  tegmine  fagi."  As  Hawthorne 
remarks,  "Much  conversation  followed," — in 
which  he  evidently  found  little  to  interest  him. 
Margaret  Fuller  also  made  a  present  of  a  heifer 
to  the  live-stock  of  the  Farm,  of  whose  unruly 
gambols  Hawthorne  seems  to  have  taken  more 
particular  notice.  He  would  seem  in  fact  to  have 
attributed  the  same  characteristics  to  the  animal 
and  its  owner. 

Having  more  time  at  his  own  disposal,  he 
now  attempted  to  write  another  volume  of 
history  for  Peter  Parley's  library,  but,  although 
this  was  rather  a  childish  affair,  he  found  him 
self  unequal  to  it.  "I  have  not,"  he  said,  "the 
sense  of  perfect  seclusion  here,  which  has  always 
been  essential  to  my  power  of  producing  any- 

146 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

thing.  It  is  true,  nobody  intrudes  into  my 
room;  but  still  I  cannot  be  quiet.  Nothing 
here  is  settled;  and  my  mind  will  not  be  ab 
stracted."  During  the  whole  of  October  he 
went  on  long  woodland  walks,  sometimes  alone 
and  at  others  with  a  single  companion.  He 
tried,  like  Emerson,  courting  Nature  in  her 
solitudes,  and  made  the  acquaintance  of  her 
denizens  as  if  he  were  the  original  Adam  taking 
an  account  of  his  animal  kingdom.  He  picks 
up  a  terrapin,  the  Emys  picta,  which  attempts 
to  hide  itself  from  him  in  a  stone  wall,  and 
carries  it  considerately  to  a  pond  of  water;  but 
there  is  not  much  to  be  found  in  the  woods, 
and  one  can  travel  a  whole  day  in  the  forest 
primeval  without  coming  across  anything  better 
than  a  few  squirrels  and  small  birds.  In  fact, 
two  young  sportsmen  once  rode  on  horseback 
with  their  guns  from  the  Missouri  River  to  the 
Pacific  Ocean  without  meeting  any  larger  game 
than  prairie-chickens. 

It  was  all  in  vain.  Hawthorne's  nature  was 
not  like  Emerson's,  and  what  stimulated  the 
latter  mentally  made  comparatively  little  im 
pression  on  the  former.  Hawthorne  found, 
then  as  always,  that  in  order  to  practice  his  art, 
he  must  devote  himself  to  it,  wholly  and  com 
pletely,  leaving  side  issues  to  go  astern.  ^In 
order  to  create  an  ideal  world  of  his  own,  he 
was  obliged  to  separate  himself  from  all  existing 
conditions,  as  Beethoven  did  when  composing 
his  symphonies.  Composition  for  Hawthorne 
meant  a  severe  mental  strainT\  Those  sentences, 

147 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

pellucid  as  a  mountain  spring,  were  not  clari 
fied  without  an  effort.  The  faculty  on  which 
Hawthorne  depended  for  this,  as  every  artist 
does,  was  his  imagination,  and  imagination  is 
as  easily  disturbed  as  the  electric  needle.  There 
is  no  fine  art  without  sensitiveness.  We  see 
it  in  the  portrait  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  a  man 
who  could  bend  horseshoes  in  his  hands;  and 
Bismarck,  who  was  also  an  artist  in  his  way, 
confessed  to  the  same  mental  disturbance  from 
noise  and  general  conversation,  which  Haw 
thorne  felt  at  Brook  Farm.  It  was  the  mental 
sensitiveness  of  Carlyle  and  Bismarck  which 
caused  their  insomnia,  and  much  other  suffering 
besides. 

George  Ripley  published  an  essay  in  the 
Dial,  in  which  he  heralded  Fourier  as  the  great 
man  who  was  destined  to  regenerate  society; 
but  Fourier  has  passed  away,  and  society  con 
tinues  in  its  old  course.  What  he  left  out  of 
his  calculations,  or  perhaps  did  not  understand, 
was  the  principle  of  population.  If  food  and 
raiment  were  as  common  as  air  and  water, 
mankind  would  double  its  numbers  every  twelve 
or  fifteen  years,  and  the  tendency  to  do  so 
produces  a  pressure  on  poor  human  nature, 
which  is  almost  like  the  scourge  of  a  whip, 
driving  it  into  all  kinds  of  ways  and  means  in 
order  to  obtain  sufficient  sustenance.  Most 
notable  among  the  methods  thus  employed  is, 
and  always  has  been,  the  division  of  labor,  and 
it  will  be  readily  seen  that  a  community  like 
Brook  Farm,  where  skilled  labor,  properly 

148 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

speaking,  was  unknown,  and  all  men  were  all 
things  by  turns,  could  never  sustain  so  large  a 
population  relatively  as  a  community  where 
a  strict  division  of  industries  existed.  If  a 
nation  like  France,  for  instance,  where  the  popu 
lation  is  nearly  stationary,  were  to  adopt  Fourier's 
plan  of  social  organization,  it  would  prove 
a  more  severe  restriction  on  human  life  than 
the  wars  of  Napoleon.  This  is  the  reason 
why  the  attempt  to  plant  a  colony  of  Eng 
lishmen  in  Tennessee  failed  so  badly.  There 
was  a  kind  of  division  of  labor  among  them, 
but  it  was  purely  a  local  and  a  foreign  division 
and  not  adapted  to  the  region  about  them. 
Ripley's  method  of  allowing  work  to  be  counted 
by  the  hour  instead  of  by  the  day  or  half -day, 
was  of  itself  sufficient  to  prevent  the  enter 
prise  from  being  a  financial  success.  Farming 
everywhere  except  on  the  Western  prairies 
requires  the  closest  thrift  and  economy,  and  all 
hands  have  to  work  hard. 

Neither  could  such  an  experiment  prove  a 
success  from  a  moral  point  of  view.  Emerson 
said  of  it:  "The  women  did  not  object  so  much 
to  a  common  table  as  they  did  to  a  common 
nursery."  In  truth  one  might  expect  that  a 
common  nursery  would  finally  result  in  a  free 
fight.  The  tendency  of  all  such  institutions 
would  be  to  destroy  the  sanctity  of  family  life; 
and  it  would  also  include  a  tendency  to  the 
deterioration  of  manliness.  One  of  the  pro 
fessed  objects  of  the  Brook  Farm  association 
was,  to  escape  from  the  evils  of  the  great  world, 

149 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

— from  the  trickery  of  trade,  the  pedantry  of 
colleges,  the  flunkyism  of  office,  and  the  ar 
rogant  pretensions  of  wealth.  Every  honest 
man  must  feel  a  sympathy  with  this;  there 
are  times  when  we  all  feel  that  the  struggle  of 
life  is  an  unequal  conflict,  from  which  it  would 
be  a  permanent  blessing  to  escape;  yet  he  who 
turns  his  back  upon  it,  is  like  a  soldier  who 
runs  away  from  the  battle-field.  It  is  the  con 
flict  with  evil  in  the  great  world,  and  in  our 
selves,  that  constitutes  virtue  and  develops 
character.  It  is  good  to  learn  the  trickery  of 
knaves  and  to  expose  it,  to  contend  against 
pedantry  and  set  a  better  example,  to  ad 
minister  offices  with  a  modest  impartiality, 
and  to  treat  the  gilded  fool  with  a  dignified 
contempt.  But  if  the  wings  of  the  archangel 
are  torn  and  soiled  in  his  conflict  with  sin, 
does  it  not  add  to  the  honor  of  the  victory? 
The  man  who  left  his  wife  and  children,  because 
he  found  that  he  could  not  live  with  them  with 
out  occasionally  losing  his  temper,  committed 
a  grievous  wrong;  and  it  is  equally  true  that  hy 
pocrisy,  the  meanest  of  vices,  may  sometimes 
become  a  virtue. 

George  P.  Bradford,  and  a  few  others,  en 
joyed  the  life  at  Brook  Farm,  and  would  have 
liked  to  remain  there  longer.  John  S.  Dwight, 
the  translator  of  Goethe's  and  Schiller's  ballads,* 
said  in  his  old  age  that  if  he  were  a  young  man, 
he  would  be  only  too  glad  to  return  there;  and 
it  is  undeniable  that  such  a  place  is  suited  to 

*  One  of  the  most  musical  translations  in  any  language. 
150 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

a  certain  class  of  persons,  both  men  and  women. 
It  cannot  be  repeated  too  often,  however,  that 
the  true  object  of  life  is  not  happiness,  but 
development.  It  is  our  special  business  on 
this  planet,  to  improve  the  human  race  as  our 
progenitors  improved  it,  and  developed  it  out 
of  we  know  not  what.  By  doing  this,  we  also 
improve  ourselves  and  happiness  comes  to  us 
incidentally ;  but  if  we  pursue  happiness  directly, 
we  soon  become  pleasure-seekers,  and,  like 
Faust,  join  company  with  Mephistopheles. 
Happiness  comes  to  a  philosopher,  perhaps 
while  he  is  picking  berries ;  to  a  judge,  watching 
the  approach  of  a  thunder-storm ;  to  a  merchant, 
teaching  his  boy  to  skate.  It  came  to  Napoleon 
listening  to  a  prayer-bell,  and  to  Hawthorne 
playing  games  with  his  children.*  Happiness 
flies  when  we  seek  it,  and  steals  upon  us  un 
awares. 

George  P.  Bradford's  account  of  Brook  Farm 
in  the  "  Memorial  History  of  Boston  "f  is  not 
so  satisfactory  as  it  might  have  been  if  he  had 
given  more  specific  details  in  regard  to  its  man 
agement.  The  general  supposition  has  been 
that  there  was  an  annual  deficit  in  the  accounts 
of  the  association,  which  could  only  be  met  by 
Mr.  Ripley  himself,  who  ultimately  lost  the 
larger  portion  of  his  investment.  It  is  difficult 
to  imagine  how  such  an  experiment  could  end 
otherwise,  and  the  final  conflagration  of  the 
principal  building,  or  "The  Hive,"  as  it  was 

*  Perhaps  also  in  his  kindliness  to  the  terrapin, 
f  Vol.  iv.  330. 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

called,  served  as  a  fitting  consummation  of  the 
whole  enterprise, —  a  truly  dramatic  climax. 
George  Ripley  went  to  New  York  to  become 
literary  editor  of  the  Tribune,  and  was  as 
distinguished  there  for  the  excellence  of  his 
reviews,  and  the  elegance  of  his  turnout  in 
Central  Park  as  he  had  been  for  the  use  of  the 
spade  and  pitchfork  at  West  Roxbury. 

Mr.  Bradford  returned  to  the  instruction  of 
young  ladies  in  French  and  Latin;  and  John 
S.  D wight  became  one  of  the  civilizing  forces 
of  his  time,  by  editing  the  Boston  Journal  of 
Music.  None  of  them  were  the  worse  for  their 
agrarian  experiment. 

Even  if  the  West  Roxbury  commune  had 
proved  a  success  for  two  or  three  generations, 
it  would  not  have  sufficed  for  a  test  of  Fourier's 
theory  for  it  would  have  been  a  republic  within 
a  republic,  protected  by  the  laws  and  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States,  without  being  sub 
jected  to  the  inconvenience  of  its  own  political 
machinery.  The  only  fair  trial  for  such  a  system 
would  be  to  introduce  it  in  some  tract  of  country 
especially  set  apart  and  made  independent  for 
the  purpose;  but  the  chances  are  ten  to  one 
that  a  community  organized  in  this  manner 
would  soon  be  driven  into  the  same  process 
of  formation  that  other  colonies  have  passed 
through  under  similar  conditions.  The  true 
socialism  is  the  present  organization  of  society, 
and  although  it  might  be  improved  in  detail, 
to  revolutionize  it  would  be  dangerous.  Yet 
the  interest  that  has  been  aroused  at  various 

152 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

times  by  discussions  of  the  Brook  Farm  pro 
ject,  shows  how  strong  the  undercurrent  is 
setting  against  the  present  order  of  things; 
and  this  is  my  chief  excuse  for  making  such  a 
long  digression  on  the  subject. 

During  these  last  months  of  his  bachelor 
hood,  Hawthorne  appears  to  us  somewhat  in 
the  light  of  a  hibernating  bear;  for  we  hear 
nothing  of  him  at  that  season  at  all.  Between 
the  last  of  October,  1841,  and  July,  1842,  there 
are  a  large  number  of  odd  fancies,  themes  for 
romances,  and  the  like,  published  from  his 
diary,  but  no  entries  of  a  personal  character. 
We  hear  incidentally  that  he  was  at  Brook 
Farm  during  a  portion  of  the  spring,  which  is 
not  surprising  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Doctor 
Nathaniel  Peabody  had  removed  from  Salem 
to  Boston  in  the  mean  time.  One  conclusion 
Hawthorne  had  evidently  arrived  at  during 
the  winter  months,  and  it  was  that  his  engage 
ment  to  Miss  Sophia  Peabody  ought  to  be  termi 
nated  in  the  way  all  such  affairs  should  be;  viz., 
by  matrimony.  Their  prospects  in  life  were  not 
brilliant,  but  it  was  difficult  to  foresee  any  ad 
vantage  in  waiting  longer,  and  there  were  decided 
disadvantages  in  doing  so.  It  was  accordingly 
agreed  that  they  should  be  married  at,  or  near, 
the  summer  solstice,  the  most  suitable  of  all 
times  for  weddings — or  engagements.  On  June 
20,  he  wrote  to  his  fiancee  from  Salem,  reminding 
her  that  within  ten  days  they  were  to  become 
man  and  wife,  and  added  this  significant  re 
flection  : 

153 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

"Nothing  can  part  us  now;  for  God  himself 
hath  ordained  that  we  shall  be  one.  So  nothing 
remains  but  to  reconcile  yourself  to  your  destiny. 
Year  by  year  we  shall  grow  closer  to  each  other ; 
and  a  thousand  years  hence,  we  shall  be  only 
in  the  honeymoon  of  our  marriage. " 

Yet  we  find  him  writing  again  the  tenderest 
and  most  graceful  of  love-letters  on  June  30.* 
The  wedding  has  evidently  been  postponed; 
but  two  days  later  he  is  in  Boston,  and  finds 
a  pleasant  recreation  watching  the  boys  sail 
their  toy  boats  on  the  Frog  Pond.  The  cere 
mony  finally  was  performed  on  July  9,  and  it 
was  only  the  day  previous  that  Hawthorne 
wrote  the  following  letter,  which  is  dated  from 
54  Pinckney  Street: 

"My  DEAR  SIR: 

"  Though  personally  a  stranger  to  you,  I  am 
about  to  request  of  you  the  greatest  favor  which 
I  can  receive  from  any  man.  I  am  to  be 
married  to  Miss  Sophia  Peabody  to-morrow,  and 
it  is  our  mutual  desire  that  you  should  perform 
the  ceremony.  Unless  it  should  be  decidedly  a 
rainy  day,  a  carriage  will  call  for  you  at  half- 
past  eleven  o'clock  in  the  forenoon. 
"  Very  respectfully  yours, 

"  NATH.  HAWTHORNE. 
"REV.  JAMES  F.  CLARKE, 
"Chestnut  St." 

George  S.  Hillard  lived  on  Pinckney  Street, 
and  Hawthorne  may  have  been  visiting  him 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  241. 
154 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

at  the  moment.  The  Peabodys  attended 
service  at  Mr.  Clarke's  church  in  Indiana  Place, 
where  Hawthorne  may  also  have  gone  with 
them.  He  could  not  have  made  a  more  judicious 
choice;  but,  singularly  enough,  although  Mr. 
Clarke  became  Elizabeth  Peabody's  life-long 
friend,  and  even  went  to  Concord  to  lecture, 
he  and  Hawthorne  never  met  again  after  this 
occasion. 

The  ceremony  was  performed  at  the  house  of 
Sophia  Peabody's  father,  No.  13  West  Street, 
a  building  of  which  not  one  stone  now  rests 
upon  another.  It  was  a  quiet  family  wedding 
(such  as  oftenest  leads  to  future  happiness), 
and  most  deeply  impressive  to  those  concerned 
in  it.  What  must  it  have  been  to  Hawthorne, 
who  had  known  so  much  loneliness,  and  had 
waited  so  long  for  the  comfort  and  sympathy 
which  only  a  devoted  wife  can  give? 

Time  has  drawn  a  veil  over  Hawthorne's 
honeymoon,  but  exactly  four  weeks  after  the 
wedding,  we  find  him  and  his  wife  installed  in 
the  house  at  Concord,  owned  by  the  descend 
ants  of  Reverend  Dr.  Ripley.  It  will  be  re 
membered  that  Hawthorne  had  invested  his 
only  thousand  dollars  in  the  West  Roxbury 
Utopia,  whence  it  was  no  longer  possible  to 
recover  it.  He  had,  however,  an  unsubstan 
tial  Utopian  sort  of  claim  for  it,  against 
the  Association,  which  he  placed  in  the  hands 
of  George  S.  Hillard,  and  subsequent  negotia 
tion  would  seem  to  have  resulted  in  giving 
Hawthorne  a  lease  of  the  Ripley  house,  or 

155 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

"Old  Manse,"  in  return  for  it.  It  was  already 
classic  ground,  for  Emerson  had  occupied  the 
house  for  a  time  and  had  written  his  first  book 
there;  and  thither  Hawthorne  went  to  locate 
himself,  determined  to  try  once  more  if  he 
could  earn  his  living  by  his  pen. 


156 


\>J 

•^      OF  THE 

I    UNIVEH'  ' 


CHAPTER  VIII 
CONCORD  AND  THE  OLD  MANSE:  1842-1845 

THE  Ripley  house  dates  back  to  the  times  of 
Captain  Daniel  Hathorne,  or  even  before  him, 
and  at  Concord  Fight  the  British  left  wing 
must  have  extended  close  to  it.  Old  and  un- 
painted  as  it  is,  it  gives  a  distinct  impression  of 
refinement  and  good  taste.  Alone,  I  believe, 
among  the  Concord  houses  of  former  times,  it  is 
set  back  far  enough  from  the  country-road  to 
have  an  avenue  leading  to  it,  lined  with  balm  of 
Gilead  trees,  and  guarded  at  the  entrance  by 
two  tall  granite  posts  somewhat  like  obelisks. 
On  the  further  side  of  the  house,  Dr.  Ripley  had 
planted  an  apple  orchard,  which  included  some 
rare  varieties,  especially  the  blue  pearmain,  a 
dark-red  autumn  apple  with  a  purple  bloom 
upon  it  like  the  bloom  upon  the  rye.  A 
high  rounded  hill  on  the  northeast  partially 
shelters  the  house  from  the  storms  in  that 
direction;  and  on  the  opposite  side  the  river 
sweeps  by  in  a  magnificent  curve,  with  broad 
meadows  and  rugged  hills,  leading  up  to  the 
pale-blue  outline  of  Mount  Wachusett  on  the 
western  horizon.  The  Musketequid  or  Concord 
River  has  not  been  praised  too  highly.  Its 
clear,  gently  flowing  current,  margined  by 
bulrushes  and  grassy  banks,  produces  an  effect 
of  mental  peacefulness,  very  different  from  the 
rushing  turbulent  waters  and  rocky  banks  of 

157 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Maine  and  New  Hampshire  rivers.  From  what 
ever  point  you  approach  the  Old  Manse,  it  be 
comes  the  central  object  in  a  charming  country 
scene,  and  it  does  not  require  the  peculiar  effect 
of  mouldering  walls  to  make  it  picturesque. 
It  has  stood  there  long,  and  may  it  long 
remain. 

There  was  formerly  an  Indian  encampment 
on  the  same  ground, —  a  well-chosen  position 
both  strategically  and  for  its  southern  exposure. 
Old  Mrs.  Ripley  had  a  large  collection  of  stone 
arrow-heads,  corn-mortars,  and  other  relics  of 
the  aborigines,  which  she  used  to  show  to  the 
young  people  who  came  to  call  on  her  grand 
children;  and  there  were  among  them  pieces 
of  a  dark-bluish  porphyry  which  she  said  was 
not  to  be  found  in  Massachusetts,  but  must 
have  been  brought  from  northern  New  England. 
There  was  no  reason  why  they  should  not  have 
been.  The  Indians  could  go  from  Concord  in 
their  canoes  to  the  White  Mountains  or  the 
Maine  lakes,  and  shoot  the  deer  that  came  down 
to  drink  from  the  banks  of  the  river;  but  the 
deer  disappeared  before  the  advance  of  the 
American  farmer,  and  the  Indians  went  with 
them.  Now  a  grandson  of  Madam  Ripley,  in 
the  bronze  likeness  of  a  minute-man  of  1775, 
stands  sentinel  at  "The  Old  North  Bridge." 

Hawthorne  ascended  the  hill  opposite  his 
house  and  wrote  of  the  view  from  it: 

"The  scenery  of  Concord,  as  I  beheld  it  from 
the  summit  of  the  hill,  has  no  very  marked 
characteristics,  but  has  a  great  deal  of  quiet 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

beauty,  in  keeping  with  the  river.  There  are 
broad  and  peaceful  meadows,  which,  I  think, 
are  among  the  most  satisfying  objects  in  natural 
scenery.  The  heart  reposes  on  them  with  a 
feeling  that  few  things  else  can  give,  because 
almost  all  other  objects  are  abrupt  and  clearly 
defined;  but  a  meadow  stretches  out  like  a 
small  infinity,  yet  with  a  secure  homeliness 
which  we  do  not  find  either  in  an  expanse  of 
water  or  air. ' ' 

The  great  cranberry  meadows  below  the 
north  bridge  are  sometimes  a  wonderful  place 
in  winter,  when  the  river  overflows  its  banks 
and  they  become  a  broad  sheet  of  ice  extending 
for  miles.  There  one  can  have  a  little  skating, 
an  exercise  of  which  Hawthorne  was  always 
fond. 

It  was  now,  and  not  at  Brook  Farm,  that 
he  found  his  true  Arcadia,  and  we  have  his 
wife's  testimony  that  for  the  first  eighteen 
months  or  more  at  the  Old  Manse,  they  were 
supremely  happy.  Every  morning  after  break 
fast  he  donned  the  blue  frock,  which  he  had 
worn  at  West  Roxbury,  and  went  to  the  wood 
shed  to  saw  and  split  wood  for  the  daily  con 
sumption.  After  that  he  ascended  to  his  study 
in  the  second  story,  where  he  wrote  and  pondered 
until  dinner-time.  It  appears  also  that  he 
sometimes  assisted  in  washing  the  dishes — like 
a  helpful  mate.  After  dinner  he  usually  walked 
to  the  post-office  and  to  a  reading-room  in  the 
centre  of  the  town,  where  he  looked  over  the 
Boston  Post  for  half  an  hour.  Later  in  the 

159 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

afternoon,  he  went  rowing  or  fishing  on  the 
river,  but  his  wife  does  not  seem  to  have  accom 
panied  him  in  these  excursions,  for  Judge  Keyes, 
who  often  met  him  in  his  boat,  does  not  mention 
seeing  her  with  him.  In  the  evenings  he  read 
Shakespeare  with  Mrs.  Hawthorne,  commencing 
with  the  first  volume,  and  going  straight  through 
to  the  end,  "Titus  Andronicus"  and  all, — and 
this  must  have  occupied  them  a  large  portion 
of  the  winter.  How  can  a  man  fail  to  be  happy 
in  such  a  mode  of  life! 

Hawthorne  also  went  swimming  in  the  river 
when  the  weather  suited — rather  exceptional 
in  Concord  for  a  middle-aged  gentleman;  but 
there  were  two  very  attractive  bathing  places 
near  the  Old  Manse,  one,  a  little  above  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  river,  and  the  other,  after 
wards  known  as  Simmons 's  Landing,  where 
there  was  a  row  of  tall  elms  a  short  distance 
below  the  bridge.  It  is  probable  that  Haw 
thorne  frequented  the  latter  place,  as  being 
more  remote  from  human  habitations.  He  did 
not  take  to  his  gun  again,  although  he  could 
see  the  wild  ducks  in  autumn,  flying  past  his 
house.  There  were  grouse  and  quail  in  the 
woods,  and  woodcock  were  to  be  found  along 
the  brook  which  ran  through  Emerson's  pasture ; 
but  perhaps  Hawthorne  had  become  too  tender 
hearted  for  field-sports. 

If  Boston  is  the  hub  of  the  universe,  Concord 
might  be  considered  as  the  linchpin  which 
holds  it  on.  Its  population  was  originally  de 
rived  from  Boston,  and  it  must  be  admitted  that 

160 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

it  retains  more  Bostonian  peculiarities  than 
most  other  New  England  towns.  It  does  not 
assimilate  readily  to  the  outside  world.  Nor  is 
it  surprising  that  few  local  visitors  called  upon 
the  Hawthornes  at  the  Old  Manse.  Emerson, 
always  hospitable  and  public-spirited,  went  to 
call  on  them  at  once;  and  John  Keyes,  also 
a  liberal-minded  man,  introduced  Hawthorne 
at  the  reading-club.  Margaret  Fuller  came  and 
left  a  book  for  Hawthorne  to  read,  which  may 
have  annoyed  him  more  than  anything  she 
could  have  said.  Elizabeth  Hoar,  a  woman  of 
exalted  character,  to  whose  judgment  Emerson 
sometimes  applied  for  a  criticism  of  his  verses, 
also  came  sometimes;  but  the  Old  Manse  was 
nearly  a  mile  away  from  Emerson's  house,  and 
also  from  what  might  be  called  the  "court 
end"  of  the  town.  Hawthorne's  nearest  neigh 
bor  was  a  milk-farmer  named  George  L.  Prescott, 
afterward  Colonel  of  the  Thirty-second  Massa 
chusetts  Volunteers.  He  not  only  brought 
them  milk,  but  also  occasionally  a  bouquet 
culled  out  of  his  own  fine  nature,  as  a  tribute 
to  genius.  A  slightly  educated  man,  he  was 
nevertheless  one  of  Nature's  gentlemen,  and 
his  death  in  Grant's  advance  on  Richmond  was 
a  universal  cause  of  mourning  at  a  time  when  so 
many  brave  lives  were  lost. 

Hawthorne,  as  usual,  was  on  the  lookout 
for  ghosts,  and  there  could  not  have  been  a 
more  suitable  abode  for  those  airy  nothings, 
than  the  Old  Manse.  Mysterious  sounds  were 
heard  in  it  repeatedly,  especially  in  the  night- 
ii  161 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

time,  when  the  change  of  temperature  produces 
a  kind  of  settlement  in  the  affairs  of  old  wood 
work.  Under  date  of  August  8  he  writes  in  his 
diary : 

"We  have  seen  no  apparitions  as  yet, — but 
we  hear  strange  noises,  especially  in  the  kitchen, 
and  last  night,  while  sitting  in  the  parlor,  we 
heard  a  thumping  and  pounding  as  of  some 
body  at  work  in  my  study.  Nay,  if  I  mistake 
not  (for  I  was  half  asleep),  there  was  a  sound 
as  of  some  person  crumpling  paper  in  his  hand 
in  our  very  bedchamber.  This  must  have 
been  old  Dr.  Ripley  with  one  of  his  sermons." 

Evidently  he  would  have  preferred  seeing 
a  ghost  to  receiving  an  honorary  degree  from 
Bowdoin  College,  and  if  the  shade  of  Doctor 
Ripley  had  appeared  to  him  in  a  dissolving 
light,  like  the  Rontgen  rays,  Hawthorne  would 
certainly  have  welcomed  him  as  a  kindred 
spirit  and  have  expressed  his  pleasure  at  the 
manifestation. 

Another  idiosyncrasy  of  his,  which  seems 
like  the  idiom  in  a  language,  was  his  total  in 
difference  to  distinguished  persons,  simply  as 
such.  It  was  not  that  he  considered  all  men 
on  a  level,  for  no  one  recognized  more  clearly 
the  profound  inequalities  of  human  nature; 
but  he  was  quite  as  likely  to  take  an  interest 
in  a  store  clerk  as  in  a  famous  writer.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose  that  a  man  is  a  parasite 
of  fame  because  he  goes  to  a  President's  re 
ception,  or  wishes  to  meet  a  celebrated  English 
lecturer.  It  is  natural  that  we  should  desire  to 

162 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

know  how  such  people  appear — their  expression, 
their  tone  of  voice,  their  general  behavior;  but 
Hawthorne  did  not  care  for  this.  At  the  time 
of  which  we  write,  Doctor  Samuel  G.  Howe,  the 
hero  of  Greek  independence  and  the  mental 
liberator  of  Laura  Bridgman,  was  a  more  famous 
man  than  Emerson  or  Longfellow.  He  came  to 
Concord  with  his  brilliant  wife,  and  they  called 
at  the  Old  Manse,  where  Mrs.  Hawthorne  re 
ceived  them  very  cordially,  but  they  saw  nothing 
of  her  husband,  except  a  dark  figure  gliding 
through  the  entry  with  his  hat  over  his  eyes. 
One  can  only  explain  this  by  one  of  those  fits 
of  exceeding  bashfulness  that  sometimes  over 
take  supersensitive  natures.  School-girls  just 
budding  into  womanhood  often  behave  in  a 
similar  manner;  and  they  are  no  more  to  be 
censured  for  it  than  Hawthorne, — to  whom  it 
may  have  caused  moments  of  poignant  self- 
reproach  in  his  daily  reflections.  But  Doctor 
Howe  was  the  man  of  all  men  whom  Haw 
thorne  ought  to  have  known,  and  half  an  hour's 
conversation  might  have  made  them  friends 
for  life. 

George  William  Curtis  was  a  remarkably 
brilliant  young  man,  and  gave  even  better 
promise  for  the  future  than  he  afterwards  ful 
filled, — as  the  editor  of  a  weekly  newspaper. 
He  was  at  Brook  Farm  with  Hawthorne, 
and  afterward  followed  him  to  Concord,  but  is 
only  referred  to  by  Hawthorne  once,  and  then 
in  the  briefest  manner.  Neither  has  Hawthorne 
much  to  say  of  Emerson;  but  Thoreau  and 

163 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Ellery  Channing  evidently  attracted  his  at 
tention,  for  he  refers  to  them  repeatedly  in  his 
diary,  and  he  has  left  the  one  life-like  portrait 
of  Thoreau — better  than  a  photograph — that 
now  exists.  He  surveys  them  both  in  rather  a 
critical  manner,  and  takes  note  that  Thoreau 
is  the  more  substantial  and  original  of  the  two; 
and  he  is  also  rather  sceptical  as  to  Channing's 
poetry,  which  Emerson  valued  at  a  high  rate; 
yet  he  narrowly  missed  making  a  friend  of 
Channing,  with  whom  he  afterward  corre 
sponded  in  a  desultory  way. 

We  should  not  have  known  of  Hawthorne's 
skating  at  Concord,  but  for  Mrs.  Hawthorne's 
"  Memoirs, "  from  which  we  learn  that  he  fre 
quently  skated  on  the  overflowed  meadows, 
where  the  Lowell  railway  station  now  stands. 
She  writes:  "Wrapped  in  his  cloak,  he  moved 
like  a  self -impelled  Greek  statue,  stately  and 
grave. "  This  is  the  manner  in  which  we  should 
imagine  Hawthorne  to  have  skated;  but  all 
others  were  a  foil  to  her  husband  in  the  eyes 
of  his  wife.*  He  was  evidently  a  fine  skater, 
gliding  over  the  ice  in  long  sweeping  curves. 
Emerson  was  also  a  dignified  skater,  but  with 
a  shorter  stroke,  and  stopping  occasionally 
to  take  breath,  or  look  about  him,  as  he  did 
in  his  lectures.  Thoreau  came  sometimes  and 
performed  rare  glacial  exploits,  interesting  to 
watch,  but  rather  in  the  line  of  the  professional 
acrobat.  What  a  transfiguration  of  Hawthorne, 

*  "Memories  of  Hawthorne,"   52. 
164 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

to  think  of  him  skating  alone  amid  the  reflec 
tions  of  a  brilliant  winter  sunset! 

When  winter  came  Emerson  arranged  a 
course  of  evening  receptions  at  his  house  for 
the  intellectual  people  of  Concord,  with  apples 
and  gingerbread  for  refreshments.  Curtis  at 
tended  these,  and  has  told  us  how  Hawthorne 
always  sat  apart  with  an  expression  on  his 
face  like  a  distant  thunder-cloud,  saying  little, 
and  not  only  listening  to  but  watching  the 
others.  Curtis  noticed  a  certain  external  and 
internal  resemblance  in  him  to  Webster,  who 
was  at  times  a  thunderous-looking  person — 
denoting,  I  suppose,  the  electric  concentration 
in  his  cranium.  Emerson  also  watched  Haw 
thorne,  and  the  whole  company  felt  his  silent 
presence,  and  missed  him  greatly  once  or  twice 
when  he  failed  to  come.  Miss  Elizabeth  Hoar 
said: 

"The  people  about  Emerson,  Channing, 
Thoreau  and  the  rest,  echo  his  manner  so  much 
that  it  is  a  relief  to  him  to  meet  a  man  like 
Hawthorne,  on  whom  his  own  personality  makes 
no  impression."  Neither  did  Mrs.  Emerson 
echo  her  husband. 

The  greater  a  man  is,  intellectually,  the  more 
distinct  his  difference  from  a  general  type  and 
also  from  other  men  of  genius.  No  two  per 
sonalities  could  be  more  unlike  than  Hawthorne 
and  Emerson. 

It  would  seem  to  be  part  of  the  irony  of  Fate 
that  they  should  have  lived  on  the  same  street, 
and,  have  been  obliged  to  meet  and  speak  with 

165 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

each  other.  One  was  like  sunshine,  the  other 
shadow.  Emerson  was  transparent,  and  wished 
to  be  so ;  he  had  .nothing  to  conceal  from  friend 
or  enemy.  Hawthorne  was  simply  impenetra 
ble.  Emerson  was  cordial  and  moderately 
sympathetic.  Hawthorne  was  reserved,  but 
his  sympathies  were  as  profound  as  the  human 
soul  itself.  To  study  human  nature  as  Haw 
thorne  and  Shakespeare  did,  and  to  make  models 
of  their  acquaintances  for  works  of  fiction, 
Emerson  would  have  considered  a  ,sin;  while 
the  evolution  of  sin  and  its  effect  on  character 
was  the  principal  study  of  Hawthorne's  life. 
One  was  an  optimist,  and  the  other  what  is 
sometimes  unjustly  called  a  pessimist;  that  is, 
one  who  looks  facts  in  the  face, and  sees  .people 
as  they  are.* 

While  Emerson's  '-mind  was  essentially  ana 
lytic,  Hawthorne's  was  synthetic,  and,  as  Con- 
way  says,  he  did  not  receive  the  world  into 
his  intellect,  but  into  his  heart,  or  soul,  where 
it  was  mirrored  in  a  magical  completeness. 
The  notion  that  the  artist  requires  merely  an 
observing  eye  is  a  superficial  delusion.  Obser 
vation  is  worth  little  without  reflection,  and 
everything  depends  on  the  manner  in  which 
the  observer  deals  with  his  facts.  Emerson 
looked  at  life  in  order  to  penetrate  it;  Haw 
thorne,  in  order  to  comprehend  it,  and  assimi 
late  it  to  his  own  nature.  The  one  talked 
heroism  and  the  other  lived  it.  Not  but  that 
Emerson's  life  was  a  stoical  one,  but  Hawthorne's 

*"  Sketches  from   Concord   and  Appledore." 
166 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

was  still  more  so,  and  only  his  wife  and  children 
knew  what  a  heart  there  was  in  him. 

The  world  will  never  know  what  these  two 
great  men  thought  of  one  another.  Hawthorne 
has  left  some  fragmentary  sentences  concerning 
Emerson,  such  as,  "that  everlasting  rejecter  of 
all  that  is,  and  seeker  for  he  knows  not  what, " 
and  "  Emerson  the  mystic,  stretching  his  hand 
out  of  cloud-land  in  vain  search  for  something 
real;"  but  he  likes  Emerson's  ingenuous  way 
of  interrogating  people,  "as  if  every  man  had 
something  to  give  him."  However,  he  makes 
no  attempt  at  a  general  estimate;  although 
this  expression  should  also  be  remembered: 
"Clergymen,  whose  creed  had  become  like  an 
iron  band  about  their  brows,  came  to  Emerson 
to  obtain  relief," — a  sincere  recognition  of  his 
spiritual  influence. 

Several  witnesses  have  testified  that  Emerson 
had  no  high  opinion  of  Hawthorne's  writing,— 
that  he  preferred  Reade's  "Christie  Johnstone" 
to  "The  Scarlet  Letter,"  but  Emerson  never 
manifested  much  interest  in  art,  simply  for  its 
own  sake.  Like  Bismarck,  whom  he  also  re 
sembled  in  his  enormous  self-confidence,  he 
cared  little  for  anything  that  had  not  a  practical 
value.  He  read  Shakespeare  and  Goethe,  not 
so  much  for  the  poetry  as  for  the  "  fine  thoughts  " 
he  found  in  them.  George  Bradford  stated 
more  than  once  that  Emerson  showed  little 
interest  in  the  pictorial  art;  and  after  walking 
through  the  sculpture-gallery  of  the  Vatican, 
he  remarked  that  the  statues  seemed  to  him 

167 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

like  toys.  His  essay  on  Michel  Angelo  is  little 
more  than  a  catalogue  of  great  achievements; 
he  recognizes  the  moral  impressiveness  of  the 
man,  but  not  the  value  of  his  sublime  concep 
tions.  Music,  neither  he  nor  Hawthorne  cared 
for,  for  it  belongs  to  emotional  natures. 

In  his  "Society  and  Solitude"  Emerson  has 
drawn  a  picture  of  Hawthorne  as  the  lover  of  a 
hermitical  life;  a  picture  only  representing  that 
side  of  his  character,  and  developed  after  Emer 
son's  fashion  to  an  artistic  extreme.  ''Whilst 
he  suffered  at  being  seen  where  he  was,  he  con 
soled  himself  with  the  delicious  thought  of  the  in 
conceivable  number  of  places  where  he  was  not," 
and  "  He  had  a  remorse  running  to  despair,  of 
his  social  gaucheries,  and  walked  miles  and  miles 
to  get  the  twitching  out  of  his  face,  the  starts 
and  shrugs  out  of  his  shoulders."* 

There  is  a  touch  of  arrogance  in  this,  and  it 
merely  marks  the  difference  between  the  modest 
author  of  the  "Essays,"  and  the  proud,  cen 
sorious  Emerson  of  1870;  but  his  love  of  ab 
solute  statements  ofttimes  led  him  into  strange 
contradictions,  and  the  injustice  which  results 
from  judging  our  fellow-mortals  by  an  inflex 
ible  standard  was  the  final  outcome  of  his 
optimism.  Hawthorne  was  more  charitable 
when  he  remarked  that  without  Byron's  faults 
we  should  not  have  had  his  virtues;  but  the 
truth  lies  between  the  two. 

There  have  been  many  instances  of  genius 
as  sensitive  as  Hawthorne's  in  various  branches 

*  "Society  and  Solitude,"  4,  5. 
168 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

of  art:  Shelley  and  Southey,  Schubert  and 
Chopin,  Correggio  and  Corot.  Southey  not 
only  blushed  red  but  blushed  blue — as  if  the 
life  were  going  out  of  him;  and  in  Chopin  and 
Correggio  at  least  we  feel  that  they  could  not 
have  been  what  they  were  without  it.  Napo 
leon,  whose  nerves  were  like  steel  wires,  suffered 
nevertheless  from  a  peculiar  kind  of  physical 
sensitiveness.  He  could  not  take  medicines 
like  other  men, — a  small  dose  had  a  terrible 
effect  on  him, — and  it  was  much  the  same  with 
respect  to  changes  of  food,  climate,  and  the  like. 

What  Hawthorne  required  was  sympathetic 
company.  Do  not  we  all  require  it?  The  hyper 
critical  morality  of  the  Emersonians,  especially 
in  Concord,  could  not  have  been  favorable  to 
his  mental  ease  and  comfort.  How  could  a  man 
in  a  happily  married  condition  feel  anything 
but  repugnance  to  Thoreau's  idea  of  marriage 
as  a  necessary  evil;  or  Alcott's  theory  that 
eating  animal  food  tended  directly  to  the  com 
mission  of  crime? 

On  the  first  anniversary  of  Hawthorne's  wed 
ding,  a  tragical  drama  was  enacted  in  Concord, 
in  which  he  was  called  upon  to  perform  a  sub 
ordinate  part.  One  Miss  Hunt,  a  school-teacher 
and  the  daughter  of  a  Concord  farmer,  drowned 
herself  in  the  river  nearly  opposite  the  place 
where  Hawthorne  was  accustomed  to  bathe. 
The  cause  of  her  suicide  has  never  been  ade 
quately  explained,  but  as  she  was  a  transcenden- 
talist,  or  considered  herself  so,  there  were  those 
who  believed  that  in  some  occult  way  that  was 

169 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

the  occasion  of  it.  However,  as  one  of  her 
sisters  afterward  followed  her  example,  it  would 
seem  more  likely  to  have  come  from  the  de 
velopment  of  some  family  trait.  She  was  seen 
walking  upon  the  bank  for  a  long  time,  before 
she  took  the  final  plunge ;  but  the  catastrophe 
was  not  discovered  until  near  evening. 

Ellery  Channing  came  with  a  man  named 
Buttrick  to  borrow  Hawthorne's  boat  for  the 
search,  and  Hawthorne  went  with  them.  As 
it  happened,  they  were  the  ones  who  found 
the  corpse,  and  Hawthorne's  account  in  his 
diary  of  its  recovery  is  a  terribly  accurate  de 
scription, — softened  down  and  poetized  in  the 
rewritten  statement  of  "The  Blithedale  Ro 
mance."  There  is  in  fact  no  description  of  a 
death  in  Homer  or  Shakespeare  so  appalling 
as  this  literal  transcript  of  the  veritable  fact.* 
What  concerns  us  here,  however,  are  the  com 
ments  he  set  down  on  the  dolorous  event. 
Concerning  her  appearance,  he  says: 

"If  she  could  have  foreseen  while  she  stood, 
at  five  o'clock  that  morning  on  the  bank  of 
the  river,  how  her  maiden  corpse  would  have 
looked  eighteen  hours  afterwards,  and  how 
coarse  men  would  strive  with  hand  and  foot 
to  reduce  it  to  a  decent  aspect,  and  all  in  vain, — 
it  would  surely  have  saved  her  from  the  deed." 

And  again: 

"  I  suppose  one  friend  would  have  saved 
her;  but  she  died  for  want  of  sympathy — a 
severe  penalty  for  having  cultivated  and  refined 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  300. 
170 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

herself  out  of  the  sphere  of  her  natural  con 
nections.  " 

The  first  remark  has  often  been  misunder 
stood.  It  is  not  the  vanity  of  women,  which 
is  after  all  only  a  reflection  (or  the  reflective 
consequence)  of  the  admiration  of  man,  which 
Hawthorne  intends,  but  that  delicacy  of  feeling 
which  Nature  requires  of  woman  for  her  own 
protection;  and  he  may  not  have  been  far 
wrong  in  supposing  that  if  Miss  Hunt  had  fore 
seen  the  exact  consequences  of  her  fatal  act 
she  would  not  have  committed  it.  Hawthorne's 
remark  that  her  death  was  a  consequence  of 
having  refined  and  cultivated  herself  beyond 
the  reach  of  her  relatives,  seems  a  rather  hard 
judgment.  The  latter  often  happens  in  American 
life,  and  although  it  commonly  results  in  more 
or  less  family  discord,  are  we  to  condemn  it  for 
that  reason?  If  she  died  as  Hawthorne  imagines, 
from  the  lack  of  intellectual  sympathy,  we  may 
well  inquire  if  there  was  no  one  in  Concord  who 
might  have  given  aid  and  encouragement  to 
this  young  aspiring  soul. 

"Take  her  up  tenderly; 

Lift  her  with  care, 
Fashioned  so  slenderly, 
Young  and  so  fair." 

And  one  is  also  tempted  to  add: 

"Alas!  for  the  rarity 
Of  Christian  charity." 

Hawthorne's  earthly  paradise  only  endured 
until  the  autumn  of  1843.  When  cool  weather 

171 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

arrived,  want  and  care  came  also.    On  November 
26  he  wrote  to  George  S.  Hillard: 

"I  wish  at  some  leisure  moment  you  would  give  yourself 
the  trouble  to  call  into  Munroe's  book-store  and  inquire 
about  the  state  of  my  'Twice-told  Tales.'  At  the  last 
accounts  (now  about  a  year  since)  the  sales  had  not  been 
enough  to  pay  expenses;  but  it  may  be  otherwise  now — 
else  I  shall  be  forced  to  consider  myself  a  writer  for  pos 
terity;  or  at  all  events  not  for  the  present  generation. 
Surely  the  book  was  puffed  enough  to  meet  with  a  sale."  * 

The  interpretation  of  this  is  that  Longfellow, 
Hillard  and  Bridge  could  appreciate  Hawthorne's 
art,  but  the  solid  men  of  Boston  ('with  some 
rare  exceptions)  could  not.  Even  Webster 
preferred  the  grotesque  art  of  Dickens  to  Haw 
thorne's  "wells  of  English  undefiled. "  Re 
cently,  one  of  the  few  surviving  original  copies 
of  "Fanshawe"  was  sold  at  auction  for  six 
hundred  dollars.  Such  is  the  difference  between 
genius  and  celebrity. 

The  trouble  then  and  now  is  that  wealthy 
Americans  as  a  class  feel  no  genuine  interest  in 
art  or  literature.  They  do  not  form  a  true  aris 
tocracy,  but  a  plutocracy,  and  are  for  the  most 
part  very  poorly  educated.  It  was  formerly 
the  brag  of  the  Winthrops  and  Otises  that  they 
could  go  through  college  and  learn  their  lessons 
in  the  recitation-room.  Now  they  go  to  row, 
and  play  foot-ball,  and  after  they  graduate, 
they  leave  the  best  portion  of  their  lives  behind 
them.  Then  if  they  have  a  talent  for  business 

*  London  Athen&um,  August  10,  1889. 
172 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

they  become  absorbed  in  commercial  affairs; 
or  if  not,  they  travel  from  one  country  to  another, 
picking  up  a  smattering  of  everything,  but  not 
resting  long  enough  in  any  one  place  for  their 
impressions  to  develop  and  bear  good  fruit. 
They  are  not  like  the  aristocratic  classes  of 
England,  France  and  Germany,  who  become 
cultivated  men  and  women,  and  serve  to  main 
tain  a  high  standard  of  art  and  literature  in 
those  countries. 

The  captain  of  a  Cunard  steamship,  who 
owned  quite  a  library,  said  in  1869:  "I  have 
bought  some  very  interesting  books  in  New 
York,  especially  by  a  writer  named  Hawthorne, 
but  the  type  and  paper  are  so  poor  that  they 
are  not  worth  binding."  The  reason  why 
American  publishers  do  not  bring  out  books 
in  such  good  form  as  foreign  publishers — is 
that  there  is  no  demand  for  a  first-rate  article. 
Thus  do  the  fine  arts  languish.  When  rich 
young  Americans  take  as  much  interest  in 
painting  and  sculpture  as  they  do  in  foot-ball 
and  yachting,  we  shall  have  our  Vandycks  and 
Murillos, — if  nothing  better. 

Discouraged  with  the  ill  success  of  "  Fan- 
shawe, "  Hawthorne  had  limited  himself  since 
then  to  the  writing  of  short  sketches,  such  as 
would  be  acceptable  to  the  magazine  editors, 
and  now  that  he  had  formed  this  habit,  he 
found  it  difficult  to  escape  from  it.  He  informs 
us  in  the  preface  to  "  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse  " 
that  he  had  hoped  a  more  serious  and  ex 
tended  plot  would  come  to  him  on  the  banks 

173 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF* 

of  Concord  River,  but  his  imagination  did  not 
prove  equal  to  the  occasion.  Most  of  the  stories 
in  " Mosses"  must  have  been  composed  at 
Concord,  but  "Mrs.  Bull- Frog"  and  " Monsieur 
du  Miroir"  must  have  been  written  previously, 
for  he  refers  to  them  in  a  letter  at  Brook  Farm. 
A  few  were  published  in  the  Democratic  Review, 
and  others  may  have  been  elsewhere;  but  the 
proceeds  he  derived  from  them  would  not  have 
supported  a  day-laborer,  and  toward  the  close 
of  his  second  year  at  the  Manse,  Hawthorne 
found  himself  running  in  debt  for  the  neces 
saries  of  life .  He  endured  this  with  his  usual  stoical 
reticence,  although  there  is  nothing  like  debt 
to  sicken  a  man's  heart, — unless  he  be  a  decidedly 
light-minded  man.  Better  fortune,  however, 
was  on  its  way  to  him  in  the  shape  of  a*  political 
revolution. 

On  March  3,  1844,  a  daughter  was  born  to 
the  Hawthornes,  whom  they  named  Una,  in 
spite  of  Hillard's  objection  that  the  name  was 
too  poetic  or  too  fanciful  for  the  prosaic  prac 
ticalities  of  real  life.  The  name  was  an  excellent 
one  for  a  poet's  daughter,  and  did  not  seem 
out  of  place  in  Arcadian  Concord.  Miss  Una 
grew  up  into  a  graceful,  fair  and  poetic  young 
lady, — in  all  respects  worthy  of  her  name. 
She  had  an  uncommonly  fine  figure,  and,  as 
often  happens  with  first-born  children,  resem 
bled  her  father  much  more  than  her  mother. 
Her  name  also  suggests  the  early  influence 
of  Spenser  in  her  father's  style  and  mode  of 
thought. 

174 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Soon  after  this  fortunate  event  Hawthorne 
wrote  a  letter  to  Hillard,  in  which  he  said: 

1 '  I  find  it  a  very  sober  and  serious  kind  of  happiness  that 
springs  from  the  birth  of  a  child.  It  ought  not  come 
too  early  in  a  man's  life — not  till  he  has  fully  enjoyed  his 
youth — for  methinks  the  spirit  can  never  be  thoroughly 
gay  and  careless  again,  after  this  great  event.  We  gain 
infinitely  by  the  exchange ;  but  we  do  give  up  something 
nevertheless.  As  for  myself  who  have  been  a  trifler  pre 
posterously  long,  I  find  it  necessary  to  come  out  of  my 
cloud-region,  and  allow  myself  to  be  woven  into  the  sombre 
texture  of  humanity." 

It  seems  then  that  his  conscience  sometimes 
reproached  him,  but  this  only  proves  that  his 
moral  nature  was  in  a  healthy  normal  condi 
tion.  There  was  a  certain  kind  of  indolence 
in  him,  a  love  of  the  dolce  far  niente,  and  an 
inclination  to  general  inactivity  which  he  may 
have  inherited  from  his  seafaring  ancestors. 
Much  better  so,  than  to  suffer  from  the  nervous 
restlessness,  which  is  the  rule  rather  than  the 
exception  in  New  England  life. 

In  the  same  letter  he  mentions  having  for 
warded  a  story  to  Graham's  Magazine,  which 
was  accepted  but  not  yet  published  after  many 
months.  He  also  anticipates  an  amelioration 
of  his  affairs  from  a  Democratic  victory  in  the 
fall  elections. 

Meanwhile,  Horatio  Bridge  had  been  travers 
ing  the  high  seas  in  the  "  Cyane,"  which  was 
finally  detailed  to  watch  for  slavers  and  to 
protect  American  commerce  on  the  African 
coast.  He  had  kept  a  journal  of  his  various  ex- 

175 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

periences  and  observations,  which  he  sent  to 
Hawthorne  with  a  rather  diffident  interrogation 
as  to  whether  it  might  be  worth  publishing. 
Hawthorne  was  decidedly  of  the  opinion  that 
it  ought  to  be  published, — in  which  we  cordially 
agree  with  him, — and  was  well  pleased  to  edit 
it  for  his  friend ;  and,  although  it  has  now  shared 
the  fate  of  most  of  the  books  of  its  class,  it  is 
excellent  reading  for  those  who  chance  to  find 
a  copy  of  it.  Bridge  was  a  good  observer, 
and  a  candid  writer. 

The  election  of  1844  was  the  most  momentous 
that  had  yet  taken  place  in  American  history. 
It  decided  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  the 
acquisition  of  California,  with  a  coast-line  on 
the  Pacific  Ocean  nearly  equal  to  that  on  the 
Atlantic ;  but  it  also  brought  with  it  an  unjust 
war  of  greed  and  spoliation,  and  other  evil 
consequences  of  which  we  are  only  now  begin- 
ing  to  reach  the  end.  The  slaveholders  and 
the  Democratic  leaders  desired  Texas  in  order 
to  perpetuate  their  control  of  the  government, 
and  it  was  precisely  through  this  measure  that 
they  lost  it, — as  happens  so  often  in  human 
affairs.  It  was  the  gold  discoveries  in  Cali 
fornia  that  upset  their  calculations.  California 
would  not  come  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  state. 
Enraged  at  this  failure,  the  Southern  politicians 
made  a  desperate  attempt  to  recover  lost  ground, 
by  seizing  on  the  fertile  prairies  in  the  North 
west;  but  there  they  came  into  conflict  with 
the  industrial  classes  of  the  North,  who  fought 
them  on  their  own  ground  and  abolished  slavery. 

176 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Never  had  public  injustice  been  followed  by 
so  swift  and  terrible  a  retribution. 

In  regard  to  the  candidates  of  1844,  it  was 
hardly  possible  to  compare  them.  Polk  pos 
sessed  the  ability  to  preside  over  the  House  of 
Representatives,  but  he  did  not  rise  above  this; 
while  Clay  could  be  fairly  compared  on  some 
points  with  Washington  himself,  and  united 
with  this  a  persuasive  eloquence  second  only 
to  Webster's.  He  was  practically  defeated 
by  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  abolitionists 
who  preferred  to  throw  away  their  votes  rather 
than  to  cast  them  for  a  slave-holder. 

Hawthorne,  in  the  quiet  seclusion  of  his 
country  home,  did  not  realize  this  danger  to 
the  Republic.  He  only  knew  that  his  friends 
were  victorious,  and  was  happy  in  the  expec 
tation  of  escaping  from  his  debts,  and  of  pro 
viding  more  favorably  for  his  little  family. 


12  177 


CHAPTER  IX 

"MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE"   I  1845 

THERE  is  no  evidence  in  the  Hawthorne 
documents  or  publications  to  show  exactly 
when  the  first  edition  of  "Mosses  from  an  Old 
Manse"  made  its  appearance,  and  copies  of 
it  are  now  exceedingly  rare,  but  we  find  the 
Hawthorne  family  in  Salem  reading  the  book 
in  the  autumn  of  1845,  so  that  it  was  probably 
brought  out  at  that  time  and  helped  to  main 
tain  its  author  during  his  last  days  at  Con 
cord. 

There  must  have  been  some  magical  influ 
ence  in  the  Old  Manse  or  in  its  surrounding 
scenery,  to  have  stimulated  both  Emerson's 
and  Hawthorne's  love  of  Nature  to  such  a 
degree.  Emerson's  eye  dilates  as  he  looks  upon 
the  sunshine  gilding  the  trunks  of  the  balm  of 
Gilead  trees  on  his  avenue;  and  Hawthorne 
dwells  with  equal  delight  on  the  luxuriant 
squash  vines  which  spread  over  his  vegetable 
garden.  Discoursing  on  this  he  says: 

"Speaking  of  summer  squashes,  I  must  say 
a  word  of  their  beautiful  and  varied  forms. 
They  presented  an  endless  diversity  of  urns 
and  vases,  shallow  or  deep,  scalloped  or  plain, 
molded  in  patterns  which  a  sculptor  would 
do  well  to  copy,  since  art  has  never  invented 
anything  more  graceful." 

178 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

And  again: 

"A  cabbage,  too — especially  the  early  Dutch 
cabbage,  which  swells  to  a  monstrous  circum 
ference,  until  its  ambitious  heart  often  bursts 
asunder — is  a  matter  to  be  proud  of  when  we 
can  claim  a  share  with  the  earth  and  sky  in 
producing  it. " 

It  would  seem  as  if  no  one  before  Hawthorne 
had  rightly  observed  these  common  vegetables, 
whose  external  appearance  is  always  before 
our  eyes.  He  not  only  humanizes  whatever 
attracts  his  attention,  but  he  looks  through  a 
refining  medium  of  his  own  personality.  He 
has  the  gift  of  Midas  to  bring  back  the  Golden 
Age  for  us.  Who  besides  Homer  has  been  able 
to  describe  a  chariot-race,  and  who  but  Haw 
thorne  could  extract  such  poetry  from  a  farmer's 
garden  ? 

If  we  compare  this  introductory  chapter 
with  such  earlier  sketches  as  "The  Vision  at 
the  Fountain"  and  "The  Toll-Gatherer's  Day," 
we  recognize  the  progress  that  Hawthorne  has 
made  since  the  first  volume  of  "Twice  Told 
Tales. "  We  are  no  longer  reminded  of  the 
plain  unpainted  house  on  Lake  Sebago.  His 
style  is  not  only  more  graceful,  but  has  acquired 
greater  fulness  of  expression,  and  he  is  evidently 
working  in  a  deeper  and  richer  vein  of  thought. 
Purity  of  expression  is  still  his  polar  star,  and 
his  writing  is  nowhere  overloaded,  but  it  has 
a  warmer  tone,  a  deeper  perspective,  and  an 
atmospheric  quality  wrhich  painters  call  chi- 

179 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

aroscuro.  He  charms  with  pleasing  fancies, 
while  he  penetrates  to  the  soul. 

Hawthorne  rarely  repeats  himself  in  details, 
and  never  in  designs.  Two  of  Dickens 's  most 
interesting  novels,  " Oliver  Twist"  and  "David 
Copperfield, "  are  constructed  on  the  same 
theme,  but  each  of  the  studies  in  this  collection 
has  a  distinct  individuality  which  appeals  to 
the  reader  after  a  fashion  of  its  own.  Each 
has  its  moral,  or  rather  central,  idea  to  which 
all  its  component  parts  are  related,  and  teaches 
a  lesson  of  its  own,  so  unobtrusively  that  we 
become  possessed  of  it  almost  unawares.  Some 
are  intensely,  even  tragically,  serious;  others 
so  light  and  airy  that  they  seem  as  if  woven 
out  of  gossamer. 

There  are  a  few,  however,  that  do  not  har 
monize  with  the  general  tone  and  character 
of  the  rest, — especially  "Mrs.  Bull-Frog," 
which  Hawthorne  himself  confessed  to  having 
been  an  experiment,  and  which  strangely 
enough  is  much  more  in  the  style  of  his  son 
Julian.  "Monsieur  du  Miroir"  and  "Sketches 
from  Memory"  are  relics  of  his  earlier  writings; 
perhaps  also  "Feather-Top"  and  "The  Pro 
cession  of  Life."  It  would  have  been  better 
perhaps  if  "Young  Goodman  Brown"  had 
-V  been  used  to  light  a  fire  at  the  Old  Manse. 

"Monsieur  du  Miroir"  is  chiefly  interesting 
as  an  example  of  Hawthorne's  faculty  for  elab 
orating  the  most  simple  subject  until  every 
possible  phase  of  it  has  been  exhausted.  It 

180 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

may  also  throw  some  light  scientifically  on  the 
origin  of  consciousness.  We  see  ourselves 
reflected  not  only  in  the  mirror,  but  on  the 
blade  of  a  knife,  or  a  puddle  in  the  road;  and, 
if  we  look  sharply  enough,  in  the  eyes  of  other 
men — even  in  the  expression  of  their  faces. 
In  such  manner  does  Nature  force  upon  us  a 
recognition  of  our  various  personalities — the 
nucleus  of  self-knowledge,  and  self-respect. 

Whittier  once  spoke  of  "Young  Goodman 
BrowTn"  as  indicating  a  mental  peculiarity  in 
Hawthorne,  which  like  the  cuttle-fish  rarely  rises 
to  the  surface.  The  plot  is  cynical,  and  largely 
enigmatical.  The  very  name  of  it  (in  the  way 
Hawthorne  develops  the  story)  is  a  fearful 
satire  on  human  nature.  He  may  have  intended 
this  for  an  exposure  of  the  inconsistency,  and 
consequent  hypocrisy,  of  Puritanism;  but  the 
name  of  Goodman  Brown's  wife  is  Faith,  and 
this  suggests  that  Brown  may  have  been  him 
self  intended  for  an  incarnation  of  doubt,  or 
disbelief  carried  to  a  logical  extreme.  What 
ever  may  have  been  Hawthorne's  design,  the 
effect  is  decidedly  unpleasant. 

Emerson  talked  in  proverbs,  and  Hawthorne 
in  parables.  The  finest  sketches  in  this  col 
lection  are  parables.  "The  Birth  Mark," 
"Rappacini's  Daughter,"  "A  Select  Party," 
"Egotism,"  and  "The  Artist  of  the  Beauti 
ful."  "The  Celestial  Railroad"  is  an  allegory, 
a  variation  on  "Pilgrim's  Progress." 

"The  Birth  Mark"  and  "Rappacini's  Daugh 
ter"  are  like  divergent  lines,  which  origiate  at  an 

181 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

single  point ;  and  that  point  is  the  radical  vicious- 
ness  of  trying  experiments  on  human  beings. 
It  is  bad  enough,  although  excusable,  to  vivi 
sect  dogs  and  rabbits;  but  why  should  we 
attempt  the  same  course  of  procedure  with 
those  that  are  nearest  and  dearest  to  us?  Such 
parables  were  not  required  in  the  time  of  Tiberius 
Caesar  and  men  and  women  grew  up  in  a  natural, 
vigorous  manner;  but  now  we  have  become 
so  scientific  that  we  continually  attempt  to 
improve  on  Nature, — like  the  artist  who  left 
the  rainbow  out  of  his  picture  of  Niagara  be 
cause  its  colors  did  not  harmonize  with  the 
background. 

The  line  of  divergence  in  ''The  Birth  Mark" 
is  indicated  by  its  name.  We  all  have  our 
birth-marks, — traits  of  character,  which  may 
be  temporarily  suppressed,  or  relegated  to  the 
background,  but  which  cannot  be  eradicated 
and  are  certain  to  reappear  at  unguarded  mo 
ments,  or  on  exceptional  occasions.  Educa 
tion  and  culture  can  do  much  to  soften  and 
temper  the  disposition,  but  the  original  ma 
terial  remains  the  same.  The  father  who  at 
tempts  to  force  his  son  into  a  mode  of  life  for 
which  Nature  did  not  intend  him,  or  the  mother 
who  quarrels  with  her  daughter's  friends,  com 
mits  an  error  similar  to  that  of  Hawthorne's 
alchemist,  who  endeavors  to  remove  the  birth 
mark  from  the  otherwise  beautiful  face  of  his 
wife,  but  only  succeeds  in  effecting  this  together 
with  her  death.  The  tragical  termination  of 
the  alchemist's  experiments,  the  pathetic  yielding 

182 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

up  of  life  by  his  sweet  "Clytie, "  is  described 
with  an  impressive  tenderness.  She  sinks  to 
her  last  sleep  without  a  murmur  of  reproach. 

"Rappacini's  Daughter"  might  serve  as 
protest  against  bringing  up  children  in  an 
ceptional  and  abnormal  manner.  I  once  kn 
an  excellent  lady,  who,  with  the  best  possible1 
intentions,  brought  up  her  daughter  to  be  dif 
ferent  from  all  other  girls.  As  a  consequence, 
she  was  different, — could  not  assimilate  herself 
to  others.  She  had  no  admirers,  or  young  friends 
of  her  own  sex,  for  there  were  few  points  of 
contact  between  herself  and  general  society. 
Her  mother  was  her  only  friend.  She  aged 
rapidly  and  died  early.  Similarly,  a  boy  brought 
up  in  a  secluded  condition  of  purity  and  ig 
norance,  finally  developed  into  one  of  the  most 
vicious  of  men. 

Hawthorne  has  prefigured  this  by  a  bright 
colored  flower  which  sparkles  like  a  gem,  very 
attractive  at  a  distance,  but  exhaling  a  deadly 
perfume.  He  may  not  have  been  aware  that 
the  opium  poppy  has  so  brilliant  a  flower  that 
it  can  be  seen  at  a  distance  from  which  all  other 
flowers  are  invisible.  The  scene  of  his  story 
is  placed  in  Italy, — the  land  of  beauty,  but 
also  the  country  of  poisoners.  Rappacini, 
an  old  botanist  and  necromancer,  has  trained 
up  his  daughter  in  the  solitary  companionship 
of  this  flower,  from  which  she  has  acquired  its 
peculiar  properties.  A  handsome  young  student 
is  induced  to  enter  the  garden,  partly  from 
curiosity  and  partly  through  the  legerdemain 

183 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

of  Rappacini.  The  student  soon  falls  under 
the  daughter's  influence  and  finds  himself  being 
gradually  poisoned.  A  watchful  apothecary, 
who  has  penetrated  the  necromancer's  secret, 
provides  the  young  man  with  an  antidote 
which  saves  him,  but  deprives  the  maiden  of 
life.  She  crosses  the  barrier  which  separated 
her  from  a  healthy  existence,  and  the  poison 
reacts  upon  her  system  and  kills  her.  The  old 


J.^fcH^l/O       LAj^V-'J.i      iJ-V^A        O^OO^Ali      «,J-J.VJ.      JVJ-iiO       AiV_-JL  .  O-  iAVx      V^AVJ. 

apothecary   looks    out    from    his    window,    and 
cries,  "O  Rappacini!    Is  this  the  consummation 


of  your  experiment? " 

The  underlying  agreement  between  this 
story  and  "The  Birth  Mark"  becomes  apparent 
when  we  observe  that  the  termination  of  one 
is  simply  a  variation  upon  the  last  scene  of  the 
other.  In  one  instance  a  beautiful  daughter 
is  sacrificed  by  her  father,  and  in  the  other  a 
lovely  wife  is  victimized  by  her  husband.  There 
have  been  thousands,  if  not  millions,  of  such 
cases. 

There  is  no  other  writer  but  Shakespeare 
who  has  portrayed  the  absolute  devotion  of  a 
woman's  love  with  such  delicacy  of  feeling 
and  depth  of  sympathy  as  Hawthorne.  In 
the  two  stories  we  have  just  considered,  and 
also  in  "The  Bosom  Serpent,"  this  element 
serves,  like  the  refrain  of  a  Greek  chorus,  to 
give  a  sweet,  penetrating  undertone  which 
reconciles  us  to  much  that  would  otherwise 
seem  intolerable.  The  heroines  in  these  pieces 
have  such  a  close  spiritual  relationship  that 
one  suspects  them  of  having  been  studied  from 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

the  same  model,  and  who  could  this  have  been 
so  likely  as  Hawthorne's  own  wife.* 

The  theme  of  "The  Bosom  Serpent"  is  a 
husband's  jealousy;  and  it  is  the  self-forgetful 
devotion  of  his  wife  that  finally  cures  his -malady 
and  relieves  him  of  his  unpleasant  companion. 
The  tale  ends  with  one  of  those  mystifying 
passages  which  Hawthorne  weaves  so  skil 
fully,  so  that  it  is  difficult  to  determine  from 
the  text  whether  there  was  a  real  serpent  secreted 
under  the  man's  clothing,  or  only  an  imaginary 
one, — although  we  presume  the  latter.  Francis 
of  Verulam  says,  "the  best  fortune  for  a  hus 
band  is  for  his  wife  to  consider  him  wise,  which 
she  will  never  do  if  she  find  him  jealous"  ; 
and  with  good  reason,  for  if  he  is  unreasonably 
jealous,  it  shows  a  lack  of  confidence  in  her; 
but  mutal  confidence  is  the  well-spring  from 
which  love  flows,  and  if  the  well  dries  up,  there 
is  an  end  of  it. 

"The  Select  Party"  is  quite  a  relief,  after 
this  tragical  trilogy.  It  is  easy  to  believe  that 
Hawthorne  imagined  this  dream  of  a  summer 
evening,  while  watching  the  great  cumulus 
clouds,  tinted  with  rose  and  lavender  like  aerial 
snow-mountains,  floating  toward  the  horizon. 
Here  were  true  castles  in  the  air,  which  he 
could  people  with  shapes  according  to  his  fancy; 
but  he  chose  the  most  common  abstract  con 
ceptions,  such  as,  the  Clerk  of  the  Weather, 
the  Beau  Ideal,  Mr.  So-they-say,  the  Coming 

*  Notice  also  the  similar  character  of  Sophia  in  J.  Haw 
thorne's  "  Bressant. " 

185 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Man,  and  other  ubiquitous  personages,  whom 
we  continually  hear  of,  but  never  see.  The 
Man  of  Fancy  invites  these  and  many  others 
to  a  banquet  in  his  cloud-castle,  where  they 
all  converse  and  behave  according  to  their 
special  characters.  A  ripple  of  delicate  humor, 
like  the  ripple  made  by  a  light  summer  breeze 
upon  the  calm  surface  of  a  lake,  runs  through 
the  piece  from  the  first  sentence  to  the  last; 
and  the  scene  is  brought  to  a  close  by  the 
approach  of  a  thunder-storm,  which  spreads 
consternation  among  these  unsubstantial  guests, 
much  like  that  which  takes  place  at  a  picnic 
under  similar  circumstances;  and  Hawthorne, 
with  his  customary  mystification,  leaves  us  in 
doubt  as  to  whether  they  ever  reached  terra 
fir  ma  again. 

There  is  one  proverbial  character,  however, 
whom  Hawthorne  has  omitted  from  this  ac 
count;  namely,  Mr.  Everybody.  "What  Every 
body  says,  must  be  true;"  but  unfortunately 
Everybody's  information  is  none  of  the  best, 
and  his  judgment  does  not  rise  above  his  informa 
tion.  His  self-confidence,  however,  is  enormous. 
He  understands  law  better  than  the  lawyer, 
and  medicine  better  than  the  physicians.  He  is 
never  tired  of  settling  the  affairs  of  the  country, 
and  of  proposing  constitutional  amendments. 
Is  it  not  perfectly  natural  that  Everybody 
should  understand  Everybody's  business  as 
well  as  or  better  than  his  own?  He  is  continu 
ally  predicting  future  events,  and  if  they  fail 
to  take  place  he  predicts  them  again.  He  is 

186 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

omnipresent,  but  if  you  seek  him  he  is  nowhere 
to  be  found, — which  we  may  presume  to  be 
the  reason  why  he  did  not  appear  at  the  enter 
tainment  given  by  the  Man  of  Fancy. 

That  which  gives  the  elevated  character  to 
Raphael's  faces — as  in  the  "Sistine  Madonna" 
and  other  paintings — is  not  their  drawing, 
though  that  is  always  refined,  but  the  expres 
sion  of  the  eyes,  which  are  truly  the  windows  of 
the  soul.  It  was  the  same  in  Hawthorne's  face, 
and  may  be  observed  in  all  good  portraits  of 
him.  An  immutable  calmness  overspread  his 
features,  but  in  and  about  his  eyes  there  was  a 
spring-like  mirthfulness ;  while  down  in  the 
shadowy  depth  of  those  luminous  orbs  was  con 
cealed  the  pathos  that  formed  the  undercurrent 
of  his  life.  So  it  is  that  high  comedy,  as  Plato 
long  ago  observed,  lies  very  close  to  tragedy. 

A  well-known  French  writer  compares  English 
humor,  in  a  general  way,  to  beer-drinking,  and 
this  is  more  particularly  applicable  to  Dickens's 
characters.  The  very  name  of  Mark  Tapley 
suggests  ale  bottles.  Thackeray's  humor  is 
of  a  more  refined  quality,  but  a  trifle  sharp 
and  satirical.  It  is,  however,  pure  and  health 
ful  and  might  be  compared  to  Rhine- wine. 
Hawthorne's  humor  at  its  best  is  more  refined 
than  Thackeray's,  as  well  as  of  a  more  amiable 
quality,  and  reminds  one  (on  Taine's  principle) 
of  those  delicate  Italian  wines  which  have  very 
little  body,  but  a  delightful  bouquet.  As  a 
humorist,  however,  Hawthorne  varies  in  dif 
ferent  times  and  places  more  than  in  any  other 

187 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

respect.  He  adapts  himself  to  his  subject;  is 
light  and  playful  in  "The  Select  Party"  ;  takes 
on  a  more  serious  vein  in  "The  Celestial  Rail 
road  " ;  in  his  resuscitation  of  Byron,  in  the  letter 
from  a  lunatic  called  "P's  Correspondence" 
he  is  simply  sardonic;  and  "The  Virtuoso's 
Collection"  has  all  the  effect,  although  he  does 
not  anywhere  descend  to  low  comedy,  of  a 
roaring  farce.  In  "Mrs.  Bull- Frog, "  as  the 
title  intimates,  he  approaches  closely  to  the 
grotesque. 

In  "The  Virtuoso's  Collection"  we  have  the 
humor  of  impossibility.  Nothing  is  more  com 
mon  than  this,  but  Hawthorne  gives  it  a  peculiar 
value  of  his  own.  A  procession  of  mythological 
objects,  strange  historical  relics,  and  the  odd 
creations  of  fiction  passes  before  our  eyes. 
The  abruptness  of  their  juxtaposition  excites 
continuous  laughter  in  us.  It  would  be  an  ex 
tremely  phlegmatic  person  who  could  read  it 
with  a  serious  face.  Don  Quixote's  Rosinante, 
Doctor  Johnson's  cat,  Shelley's  skylark,  a  live 
phcenix,  Prospero's  magic  wand,  the  hard- 
ridden  Pegasus,  the  dove  which  brought  the 
olive  branch,  and  many  others  appear  in  such 
rapid  succession  that  the  reader  has  no  time  to 
take  breath,  or  to  consider  what  will  turn  up 
next.  Like  an  accomplished  showman,  Haw 
thorne  enlivens  the  performance  here  and  there 
with  original  reflections  on  life,  which  are  per 
fectly  dignified,  but  become  humorous  from 
contrast  with  their  surroundings.  In  spite  of 
its  comical  effect,  the  piece  has  a  very  genteel 

188 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

air,  for  its  material  is  taken  from  that  general 
stock  of  information  that  passes  current  in 
cultivated  families.  The  young  man  of  fashion 
who  had  never  heard  of  Elijah,  or  of  Poe's 
"Raven,"  would  not  have  understood  it. 

In  "The  Hall  of  Fantasy,"  we  catch  some 
glimpses  of  Hawthorne's  favorite  authors: 

"The  grand  old  countenance  of  Homer,  the 
shrunken  and  decrepit  form,  but  vivid  face, 
of  ^sop,  the  dark  presence  of  Dante,  the  wild 
Ariosto,  Rabelais's  smile  of  deep-wrought  mirth, 
the  profound,  pathetic  humor  of  Cervantes, 
the  all  glorious  Shakespeare,  Spenser,  meet 
guest  for  an  allegoric  structure,  the  severe 
divinity  of  Milton  and  Bunyan,  molded  of 
the  homeliest  clay,  but  instinct  with  celestial 
fire — were  those  that  chiefly  attracted  my  eye. 
Fielding,  Richardson,  and  Scott  occupied  con 
spicuous  pedestals." 

He  also  adds  Goethe  and  Swedenborg,  and 
remarks  of  them : 

"  Were  ever  two  men  of  transcendent  imagina 
tion  more  unlike?" 

It  is  evident  that  Byron  was  not  a  favorite 
with  Hawthorne.  In  addition  to  his  severe 
treatment  of  that  poet,  in  "  P's  Correspondence," 
he  says  in  "Earth's  Holocaust,"  where  he  im 
agines  the  works  of  various  authors  to  be  con 
sumed  in  a  bonfire : 

"Speaking  of  the  properties  of  flame,  me- 
thought  Shelley's  poetry  emitted  a  purer  light 
than  almost  any  other  productions  of  his  day, 
contrasting  beautifully  with  the  fitful  and  lurid 

189 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

gleams  and  gushes  of  black  vapor  that  flashed 
and  eddied  from  the  volumes  of  Lord  Byron." 

This  seems  like  rather  puritanical  treatment. 
If  there  are  false  lines  in  Byron,  there  are  quite 
as  many  weak  lines  in  Shelley.  If  sincerity 
were  to  give  out  a  pure  flame,  Byron  would 
stand  that  test  equal  to  any.  His  real  fault  is 
to  be  found  in  his  somewhat  glaring  diction, 
like  the  voix  blanc  in  singing,  and  in  an  occasional 
stroke  of  persiflage.  This  increases  his  attractive 
ness  to  youthful  minds,  but  to  a  nature  like 
Hawthorne's  anything  of  an  exhibitory  charac 
ter  must  always  be  unpleasant. 

Emerson  and  Hawthorne  only  knew  Goethe 
through  the  translations  of  D wight,  Carlyle 
and  Margaret  Fuller,  and  yet  his  poetry  made 
a  deeper  impression  on  them  than  on  Lowell 
and  Longfellow,  who  read  it  in  the  original. 
Hawthorne  appears  to  have  taken  lessons  in 
German  while  at  Brook  Farm,  for  we  find  him 
studying  a  German  book  at  the  Old  Manse, 
with  a  grammar  and  lexicon;  but,  as  he  con 
fesses  in  his  diary,  without  making  satisfactory 
progress. 

"The  Artist  of  the  Beautiful"  is  a  Dantean 
allegory,  and  a  poetic  gem.  A  young  watch 
maker,  imbued  with  a  spirit  above  his  calling, 
neglects  the  profits  of  his  business  in  order  to 
construct  an  artificial  butterfly, — at  once  the 
type  of  useless  beauty  and  the  symbol  of  im 
mortality,  and  he  perseveres  in  spite  of  the  dif 
ficulties  of  the  undertaking  and  the  contempt 
uous  opposition  of  his  acquaintances.  He 

190 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

finally  succeeds  in  making  one  which  seems  to 
be  almost  endowed  with  life,  but  only  to  be  in 
formed  that  it  is  no  better  than  a  toy,  and  that 
he  has  wasted  his  time  on  a  thing  which  has  no 
practical  value.  A  child  (who  represents  the 
thoughtlessness  of  the  great  world)  crushes  the 
exquisite  piece  of  workmanship  in  his  little 
hand;  but  the  watch-maker  does  not  repine  at 
this,  for  he  realizes  that  after  having  achieved 
the  beautiful,  in  his  own  spirit,  the  outward 
symbol  of  it  has  comparatively  little  value. 
The  Artist  of  the  Beautiful  is  Hawthorne  him 
self;  and  in  this  exquisite  fable  he  has  not 
only  unfolded  the  secret  of  all  high  art,  but  his 
own  life-secret  as  well. 

HAWTHORNE    AND    TRANSCENDENTALISM 

The  French  and  English  scepticism  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  produced  a  reaction  in  the 
more  contemplative  German  nature,  which 
took  the  form  of  a  strong  assertion  of  spirit  or 
mind  as  an  entity  in  itself,  and  distinct  from 
matter.  This  movement  was  more  like  a  national 
impulse  than  the  proselytism  of  a  sect,  but 
the  individual  in  whom  this  spiritual  impulse 
of  the  German  people  manifested  itself  at  that 
time  was  Immanuel  Kant.  Without  discredit 
ing  the  revelations  of  Hebrew  tradition,  he 
taught  the  doctrine  that  instead  of  looking  for 
evidence  of  a  Supreme  Being  in  the  external 
world,  we  should  seek  him  in  our  own  hearts; 
that  every  man  could  find  a  revelation  in  his 
own  conscience, — in  the  consciousness  of  good 

191 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

and  evil,  by  which  man  improves  his  condition 
on  earth;  that  the  ideas  of  a  Supreme  Being, 
or  of  immortality  and  freedom  of  will,  are  in 
herent  in  the  human  mind,  and  are  not  to  be 
acquired  from  experience;  but  that,  as  the 
finite  mind  cannot  comprehend  the  infinite, 
we  cannot  know  God  in  the  same  sense  that 
we  know  our  own  earthly  fathers,  or  as  Goethe 
afterwards  expressed  it, — 

' '  Who  can  say  I  know  Him ; 
Who  can  say,  I  know  Him  not;" 

and  that  it  is  in  this  aspiration  for  the  unat 
tainable,  in  this  reverence  for  absolute  -purity, 
wisdom  and  love,  that  the  spirit  of  true  religion 
consists. 

The  new  philosophy  was  named  "Tran 
scendentalism"  by  Kant's  followers,  because 
it  included  ideas  which  were  beyond  the  range 
of  experience.  It  became  popular  in  Germany, 
as  Platonism,  to  which  it  is  closely  related,  be 
came  popular  in  ancient  Greece.  It  has  never 
been  accepted  in  France,  where  scepticism  still 
predominates,  though  we  hear  of  it  in  Taine 
and  a  few  other  writers;  but  in  Great  Britain, 
although  the  English  universities  repudiated 
it,  Transcendentalism  became  so  influential  that 
Gladstone  has  spoken  of  it,  in  his  Romanes 
lecture,  as  the  dominant  philosophy  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Every  notable  English 
writer  of  that  period,  with  the  exception  of 
Macaulay,  Mill,  and  Spencer,  became  largely 
imbued  with  it.  In  America  its  influence  did 

192 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

not  extend  much  beyond  New  England,  but  in 
that  section  at  least  its  proselytes  were  numbered 
by  thousands,  and  it  effected  an  intellectual 
revolution  which  has  since  influenced  the  whole 
country. 

The  Concord  group  of  transcendentalists  did 
not  accept  the  teaching  of  Kant  in  its  original 
purity;  but  mixed  with  it  a  number  of  other 
imported  products,  that  in  no  way  appertain 
to  it.  Thoreau  was  an  American  sansculotte, 
a  believer  in  the  natural  man;  Ripley  was 
mainly  a  socialist;  Margaret  Fuller  was  one.  of 
the  earliest  leaders  in  woman's  rights;  Alcott 
was  a  Neo-Platonist,  a  vegetarian,  and  a  non- 
resistant;  while  Emerson  sympathized  largely 
with  Thoreau,  and  from  his  poetic  exaltation 
of  Nature  was  looked  upon  as  a  pantheist  by 
those  -who  were  not  accustomed  to  nice  dis 
criminations.  Thus  it  happened  that  Tran 
scendentalism  came  to  be  associated  in  the 
public  mind  with  any  exceptional  mode  or 
theory  of  life.  Its  best  representatives  in 
America,  like  Professor  Hedge  of  Harvard, 
Reverend  David  A.  Wasson  and  Doctor  William 
T.  Harris  (so  long  Chief  of  the  National  Bureau 
of  Education),  were  much  abler  men  than 
Emerson's  followers,  but  did  not  attract  so 
much  attention,  simply  because  they  lived 
according  to  the  customs  of  good  society. 

Sleepy  Hollow,  before  it  was  converted  into 
a  cemetery,  was  one  of  the  most  attractive 
sylvan  resorts  in  the  environs  of  Concord.  It 
was  a  sort  of  natural  amphitheatre,  a.  small 

13  193 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

oval  plane,  more  than  half  surrounded  by  a 
low  wooded  ridge;  a  sheltered  and  sequestered 
spot,  cool  in  summer,  but  also  warm  and  sunny 
in  spring,  where  the  wild  flowers  bloomed  and 
the  birds  sang  earlier  than  in  other  places. 

There,  on  August  22,  1842,  a  notable  meeting 
took  place,  between  Hawthorne,  Emerson,  and 
Margaret  Fuller,  who  came  that  afternoon  to 
enjoy  the  inspiration  of  the  place,  without 
preconcerted  agreement.  Margaret  Fuller  was 
first  on  the  ground,  and  Hawthorne  found  her 
seated  on  the  hill-side — his  gravestone  now 
overlooks  the  spot — reading  a  book  with  a 
peculiar  name,  which  he  "did  not  understand, 
and  could  not  afterward  recollect."  Such  a 
description  could  only  apply  to  Kant's  "  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason,"  the  original  fountain-head 
and  gospel  of  Transcendentalism. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 
ever  studied  "The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason." 
His  mind  was  wholly  of  the  artistic  order, — 
the  most  perfect  type  of  an  artist,  one  might 
say,  living  at  that  time, — and  a  scientific  analysis 
of  the  mental  faculties  would  have  been  as 
distasteful  to  him  as  the  dissection  of  a  human 
body.  History,  biography,  fiction,  did  not 
appear  to  him  as  a  logical  chain  of  cause  and 
effect,  but  as  a  succession  of  pictures  illustra 
ting  an  ideal  determination  of  the  human  race. 
He  could  not  even  look  at  a  group  of  turkeys 
without  seeing  a  dramatic  situation  in  them. 
In  addition  to  this,  as  a  true  artist,  he  was  pos 
sessed  of  a  strong  dislike  for  everything  eccentric 

194 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

and  abnormal;  he  wished  for  symmetry  in  all 
things,  and  above  all  in  human  actions;  and 
those  restless,  unbalanced  spirits,  who  attached 
themselves  to  the  transcendental  movement 
and  the  anti-slavery  cause,  were  particularly 
objectionable  to  him.  It  has  been  rightly  af 
firmed  that  no  revolutionary  movement  could 
be  carried  through  without  the  support  of  that 
ill-regulated  class  of  persons  who  are  always 
seeking  they  know  not  what,  and  they  have 
their  value  in  the  community,  like  the  rest  of 
us;  but  Hawthorne  was  not  a  revolutionary 
character,  and  to  his  mind  they  appeared  like 
so  many  obstacles  to  the  peaceable  enjoyment 
of  life.  His  motto  was,  "Live  and  let  live." 
There  are  passages  in  his  Concord  diary  in  which 
he  refers  to  the  itinerant  transcendentalist  in  no 
very  sympathetic  manner. 

His  experience  at  Brook  Farm  may  haveV 
helped  to  deepen  this  feeling.  There  is  no 
necessary  connection  between  such  an  idyllic- 
socialistic  experiment  and  a  belief  in  the  direct 
perception  of  a  great  First  Clause;  but  Brook 
Farm  was  popularly  supposed  at  that  time  to 
be  an  emanation  of  Transcendentalism,  and  is 
still  largely  so  considered.  He  was  wearied  at 
Brook  Farm  by  the  philosophical  discussions 
of  George  Ripley  and  his  friends,  and  took  to 
walking  in  the  country  lanes,  where  he  could 
contemplate  and  philosophize  in  his  own  fashion, 
— which  after  all  proved  to  be  more  fruitful 
than  theirs.  Having  exchanged  his  interest 
in  the  West  Roxbury  Association  for  the  Old 

195 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Manse  at  Concord  (truly  a  poetic  bargain),  he 
wrote  the  most  keenly  humorous  of  his 
shorter  sketches,  his  "The  Celestial  Railroad," 
and  in  it  represented  the  dismal  cavern 
where  Bunyan  located  the  two  great  enemies 
of  true  religion,  the  Pope  and  the  Pagan,  as 
now  occupied  by  a  German  giant,  the  Tran- 
scendentalist,  who  "makes  it  his  business  to 
seize  upon  honest  travellers  and  fat  them  for 
his  table  with  plentiful  meals  of  smoke,  mist, 
moonshine,  raw  potatoes,  and  sawdust." 

That  Transcendentalism  was  largely  associated 
in  Hawthorne's  mind  with  the  unnecessary 
discomforts  and  hardships  of  his  West  Rox- 
bury  life  is  evident  from  a  remark  which  he 
lets  fall  in  "The  Virtuoso's  Collection."-  The 
Virtuoso  calls  his  attention  to  the  seven-league 
boots  of  childhood  mythology,  and  Hawthorne 
replies,"!  could  show  you  quite  as  curious  a 
pair  of  cowhide  boots  at  the  transcendental 
community  of  Brook  Farm."  Yet  there  could 
have  been  no  malice  in  his  satire,  for  Mrs.  Haw 
thorne's  two  sisters,  Mrs.  Mann  and  Miss  Pea- 
body,  were  both  transcendentalists ;  and  so 
was  Horace  Mann  himself,  so  far  as  we  know 
definitely  in  regard  to  his  metaphysical  creed. 
Do  not  we  all  feel  at  times  that  the  search  for 
abstract  truth  is  like  a  diet  of  sawdust  or  Scotch 
mist, — a  "chimera  buzzing  in  a  vacuum"  ? 

James  Russell  Lowell  similarly  attacked 
Emerson  in  his  Class  Day  poem,  and  afterward 
became  converted  to  Emerson's  views  through 
the  influence  of  Maria  White.  It  is  possible 

196 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

that  a  similar  change  took  place  in  Hawthorne's 
consciousness;  although  his  consciousness  was 
so  profound  and  his  nature  so  reticent  that 
what  happened  in  the  depths  of  it  was  never 
indicated  by  more  than  a  few  bubbles  at  the 
surface.  He  was  emphatically  an  idealist,  as 
every  truly  great  artist  must  be,  and  Tran 
scendentalism  was  the  local  costume  which 
ideality  wore  in  Hawthorne's  time.  He  was  a 
philosopher  after  a  way  of  his  own,  and  his 
reflections  on  life  and  manners  often  have 
the  highest  value.  It  was  inevitable  that  he 
should  feel  and  assimilate  something  from  the 
wave  of  German  thought  which  was  sweeping 
over  England  and  America,  and  if  he  did  this 
unconciously  it  was  so  much  the  better  for  the 
quality  of  his  art. 

There  are  evidences  of  this  even  among  his 
earliest  sketches.  In  his  account  of  "  Sunday 
at  Home"  he  says:  "Time — where  a  man 
lives  not — what  is  it  but  Eternity?"  Does  he 
not  recognize  in  this  condensed  statement 
Kant's  theorem  that  time  is  a  mental  condition, 
which  only  exists  in  man,  and  for  man,  and 
has  no  place  in  the  external  world?  In  fact, 
it  only  exists  by  divisions  of  time,  and  it  is  man 
who  makes  the  divisions.  The  rising  of  the 
sun  does  not  constitute  time;  for  the  sun  is 
always  rising — somewhere.  The  positivists  and 
Herbert  Spencer  deny  this,  and  argue  to  prove 
that  time  is  an  external  entity — independent 
of  man — like  electricity;  but  Hawthorne  did 
not  agree  with  them. 

197 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

He  evidently  trusted  the  validity  of  his  con 
sciousness.  In  that  exquisite  pastoral,  "The 
Vision  at  the  Fountain,  "  he  says: 

"We  were  aware  of  each  other's  presence, 
not  by  sight  or  sound  or  touch,  but  by  an  in 
ward  consciousness.  Would  it  not  be  so  among 
the  dead?" 

You  have  probably  heard  of  the  German  who 
attempted  to  evolve  a  camel  out  of  his  inner 
consciousness.  That  and  similar  jibes  are  com 
mon  among  those  persons  of  whom  the  Scriptures 
tell  us  that  they  are  in  the  habit  of  straining 
at  gnats;  but  Hawthorne  believed  conscious 
ness  to  be  a  trustworthy  guide.  Why  should 
he  not?  It  was  the  consciousness  of  self  that 
raised  man  above  the  level  of  the  brute.  This 
was  the  rock  from  which  Moses  struck  forth 
the  fountain  of  everlasting  life. 

Again,  in  "Fancy's  Show- Box"  we  meet 
with  the  following: 

"Or,  while  none  but  crimes  perpetrated  are 
cognizable  before  an  earthly  tribunal,  will 
guilty  thoughts, — of  which  guilty  deeds  are 
no  more  than  shadows, — will  these  draw  down 
the  full  weight  of  a  condemning  sentence  in 
the  supreme  court  of  eternity  ? ' ' 

Is  this  not  an  induction  from  or  corollary 
to  the  preceding?  If  it  is  not  Kantian  philos 
ophy,  it  is  certainly  Goethean.  Margaret  Fuller 
was  the  first  American  critic,  if  not  the  first  of 
all  critics,  to  point  out  that  Goethe  in  writing 
"Elective  Affinities"  designed  to  show  that 
an  evil  thought  may  have  consequences  as 

198 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

serious  and  irremediable  as  an  evil  action — s 
in  addition  to  the  well-known  homily  that  evil 
thoughts  lead  to  evil  actions.  In  his  "Hall  of 
Fantasy"  Hawthorne  mentions  Goethe  and 
Swedenborg  as  two  literary  idols  of  the  present 
time  who  may  be  expected  to  endure  through 
all  time.  Emerson  makes  the  same  prediction 
in  one  of  his  poems. 

In  "Rappacini's  Daughter"   Hawthorne  says:   , 
"  There  is  something  truer  and  more  real  than 
what  we  can  see  with  the  eyes  and  touch  with 
the  finger." 

And  in  "The  Select  Party"  he  remarks: 
"To  such  beholders  it  was  unreal  because 
they  lacked  the  imaginative  faith.  Had  they 
been  worthy  to  pass  within  its  portals,  they 
would  have  recognized  the  truth  that  the 
dominions  which  the  spirit  conquers  for  itself 
among  unrealities  become  a  thousand  times 
more  real  than  the  earth  whereon  they  stamp 
their  feet,  saying,  'This  is  solid  and  substan 
tial!  This  may  be  called  a  fact! ' " 

The  essence  of  Transcendentalism  is  the  as 
sertion  of  the  indestructibility  of  spirit,  that 
mind  is  more  real  than  matter,  and  the  unseen 
than  the  seen.  "The  visible  has  value  only," 
says  Carlyle,  "  when  it  is  based  on  the  invisible. " 
No  writer  of  the  nineteenth  century  affirms  this 
more  persistently  than  Hawthorne,  and  in  none 
of  his  romances  is  the  principle  so  conspicuous 
as  in  "The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables."  It  is 
a  sister's  love  which,  like  a  cord  stronger  than 
steel,  binds  together  the  various  incidents  of 

199 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

the  story,  while  the  avaricious  Judge  Pyncheon, 
"  with  his  landed  estate,  public  honors,  offices  of 
trust  and  other  solid  ^realities,"  has  after 
all  only  succeeded  in  building  a  card  castle  for 
himself,  which  may  be  dissipated  by  a  single 
breath.  Holgrave,  the  daguerreotypist,  who 
serves  as  a  contrast  to  the  factitious  judge,  is  a 
genuine  character,  and  may  stand  for  a  type 
of  the  young  New  England  liberal  of  1850:  a 
freethinker,  and  so  much  of  a  transcendentalist 
that  we  suspect  Hawthorne's  model  for  him  to 
have  been  one  of  the  younger  associates  of  the 
Brook  Farm  experiment.  He  is  evidently 
studied  from  life,  and  Hawthorne  says  of  him: 

"  Altogether,  in  his  culture  and  want  of 
culture,  in  his  crude,  wild,  and  misty  philosophy, 
and  the  practical  experience  that  counteracted 
some  of  its  tendencies;  in  his  magnanimous 
zeal  for  man's  welfare,  and  his  recklessness  of 
whatever  the  ages  had  established  in  man's 
behalf;  in  his  faith,  and  in  his  infidelity;  in 
what  he  had,  and  in  what  he  lacked,  the  artist 
might  fitly  enough  stand  forth  as  the  repre 
sentative  of  many  compeers  in  his  native  land. " 

This  is  a  fairly  sympathetic  portrait,  and  it 
largely  represents  the  class  of  young  men  who 
went  to  hear  Emerson  and  supported  Charles 
Sumner.  In  the  story,  Holgrave  achieves  the 
reward  of  a  veracious  nature  by  winning  the 
heart  of  the  purest  and  loveliest  young  woman 
in  American  fiction. 

If  Hawthorne  were  still  living  he  might  ob 
ject  to  the  foregoing  argument  as  a  misrepre- 

200 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

sentation;  nor  could  he  be  blamed  for  this, 
for  Ripley,  Thoreau,  Alcott  and  other  like  vision 
ary  spirits  have  so  vitiated  the  significance 
of  Transcendentalism  that  it  ought  now  to  be 
classed  among  words  of  doubtful  and  uncertain 
meaning. 

Students  of  German  philosophy  are  now 
chiefly  known  as  Kantists  or  Hegelians,  and 
outside  of  the  universities  they  are  commonly 
classed  as  Emersonians. 


CHAPTER  X 

FROM  CONCORD  TO  LENOX:  1845-1849 

IN  May,  1845,  Paymaster  Bridge  found  him 
self  again  on  the  American  coast.  Meeting 
with  Franklin  Pierce  in  Boston,  they  agreed  to 
go  to  Concord  together,  and  look  into  Haw 
thorne's  affairs.  Soon  after  breakfast,  Mrs. 
Hawthorne  espied  them  coming  through  the 
gateway.  She  had  never  met  Pierce,  but  she 
recognized  Bridge's  tall,  elegant  figure,  when 
he  waved  his  hat  to  her  in  the  distance.  Haw 
thorne  himself  was  sawing  and  splitting  in  the 
wood-shed,  and  thither  she  directed  his  friends 
—to  his  no  slight  astonishment  when  they  ap 
peared  before  him.  Pierce  had  his  arm  across 
Hawthorne's  broad  shoulders  when  they  re 
appeared.  There  is  one  pleasure,  indeed,  which 
young  people  cannot  know,  and  that  is,  the 
meeting  of  old  friends.  Mrs.  Hawthorne  was 
favorably  impressed  with  Franklin  Pierce 's 
personality;  while  Horatio  Bridge  danced  about 
and  acted  an  impromptu  pantomime,  making 
up  faces  like  an  owl.  They  assured  Hawthorne 
that  something  should  be  done  to  relieve  his 
financial  embarrassment.* 

All  those  whose  attention  Hawthorne  at 
tracted  out  of  the  rush  and  hurry  of  the  world 

*J.   Hawthorne,    281. 
202 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

were  sure  to  become  interested  in  his  welfare. 
O 'Sullivan,  the  editor  of  the  Democratic  Review, 
had  already  exerted  himself  in  Hawthorne's 
behalf;  but  President  Polk  evidently  did  not 
know  who  Hawthorne  was,  so  that  O 'Sullivan 
was  obliged  to  have  a  puff  inserted  in  his  review 
for  the  President's  better  information.  George 
Bancroft  was  now  in  the  Cabinet,  and  could 
easily  have  obtained  a  lucrative  post  for  Haw 
thorne,  but  it  is  plain  that  Bancroft  was  not 
over-friendly  to  him  and  that  Hawthorne  was 
fully  aware  of  this.  Hawthorne  had  suggested 
the  Salem  postmastership,  but  when  O' Sullivan 
mentioned  this,  Bancroft  objected  on  the  ground 
that  the  present  incumbent  was  too  good  a 
man  to  be  displaced,  and  proposed  the  con 
sulates  of  Genoa  and  Marseilles,  two  deplorable 
positions  and  quite  out  of  the  question  for  Haw 
thorne,  in  the  condition  of  his  family  at  that 
time.  Perhaps  it  would  have  been  better  for 
him  in  a  material  sense,  if  he  had  accepted  the 
invitation  to  dine  with  Margaret  Fuller. 

The  summer  wore  away,  but  nothing  was 
acomplished;  and  late  in  the  autumn  Haw 
thorne  left  the  Old  Manse  to  return  to  his  Uncle 
Robert  Manning's  house  in  Salem,  where  he 
could  always  count  on  a  warm  welcome.  There 
he  spent  the  winter  with  his  wife  and  child, 
until  suddenly,  in  March,  1846,  he  was  appointed 
Surveyor  of  the  Port,  or,  as  it  is  now  more 
properly  called,  Collector  of  Customs. 

This  was,  in  truth,  worth  waiting  for.  The 
salary  was  not  large,  but  it  was  a  dignified 

203 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

position  and  allowed  Hawthorne  sufficient  lei 
sure  for  other  pursuits, — the  leisure  of  the 
merchant  or  banker.  Salem  had  already  begun 
to  lose  its  foreign  trade,  and  for  days  together 
it  sometimes  happened  that  there  was  nothing 
to  do.  Hawthorne's  chief  business  was  to  pre 
vent  the  government  from  being  cheated, 
either  by  the  importers  or  by  his  own  sub 
ordinates;  and  it  required  a  pretty  sharp  eye 
to  do  this.  All  the  appointments,  even  to  his 
own  clerks,  were  made  by  outside  politicians, 
and  when  a  reduction  of  employees  was  necessary, 
Hawthorne  consulted  with  the  local  Democratic 
Committee,  and  followed  their  advice.  Such  a 
method  was  not  to  the  advantage  of  the  public 
service,  but  it  saved  Hawthorne  from  an  an 
noying  responsibility.  His  strictness  and  im 
partiality,  however,  soon  brought  him  into 
conflict  with  his  more  self-important  subordi 
nates,  who  were  by  no  means  accustomed  to 
exactness  in  their  dealings,  and  this  finally 
produced  a  good  deal  of  official  unpleasantness; 
and  the  unfavorable  reports  which  were  after 
ward  circulated  concerning  Hawthorne's  life 
during  this  period,  probably  originated  in  that 
quarter. 

All  the  poetry  that  Hawthorne  could  extract 
from  his  occupation  at  the  Custom  House  is 
to  be  found  in  his  preface  to  "The  Scarlet 
Letter,"  but  he  withholds  from  us  the  prosaic 
side  of  it, — as  he  well  might.  At  times  he  comes 
close  to  caricature,  especially  in  his  descrip 
tions  of  "those  venerable  incumbents  who 

204 


1  ^ 

I 

3S 

o 


- 

0       ? 

>     o 


R^K?^ 

V     OP  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


OF 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

hibernated  during  the  winter  season,  and  then 
crawled  out  during  the  warm  days  of  spring 
to  draw  their  pay  and  perform  those  pretended 
duties,  for  which  they  were  engaged."  There 
were  formerly  large  numbers  of  moss-grown 
loafers  in  the  government  service,  with  whiskey- 
reddened  noses  and  greasy  old  clothing,  who 
would  sun  themselves  on  the  door-steps,  and 
tell  anecdotes  of  General  Jackson,  Senator 
Benton,  and  other  popular  heroes,  with  whom 
they  would  intimate  a  good  acquaintance  at 
some  remote  period  of  their  lives.  If  removed 
from  office,  they  were  quite  as  likely  to  turn 
up  in  a  neighboring  jail  as  in  any  other  location. 
This  is  no  satire,  but  serious  truth;  and  instances 
of  it  can  be  given. 

Hawthorne's  life  during  the  next  three  years 
was  essentially  domestic.  In  June,  1846,  his 
son  Julian  was  born — a  remarkably  vigorous 
baby — at  Doctor  Peabody's  house  in  West 
Street,  Boston;  Mrs.  Hawthorne  wisely  pre 
ferring  to  be  with  her  own  mother  during  her  con 
finement.*  With  two  small  children  on  her 
hands,  Mrs.  Hawthorne  had  slight  opportunity 
to  enjoy  general  society,  fashionable  or  other 
wise.  Rebecca  Manning  says,  however: 

"Neither  Hawthorne  nor  his  wife  could  be 
said  to  be  'in  society'  in  the  technical  sense. 

*  At  the  age  of  thirty-five,  Julian  resembled  his  father  so 
closely  that  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  old  friends  were  some 
times  startled  by  him,  as  if  they  had  seen  an  apparition. 
He  was,  however,  of  a  stouter  build,  and  his  eyes  were 
different. 

205 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

When  the  Peabody  family  lived  in  Salem, 
they  were,  I  have  been  told,  somewhat  strait 
ened  pecuniarily.  After  Hawthorne's  marriage, 
I  think  I  remember  hearing  of  his  wife  going 
to  parties  and  dinners  occasionally.  Dr.  Loring's 
wife  was  her  cousin.  Other  friends  were  the 
Misses  Howes,  one  of  whom  is  now  Mrs.  Cabot 
of  Boston.  Mrs.  Foote,  who  was  a  daughter 
of  Judge  White,  was  a  friend,  and  I  remember 
some  Silsbees  who  were  also  her  friends.  Haw 
thorne's  wife  knew  how  to  cultivate  her  friends 
and  make  the  most  of  them  far  better  than 
either  Hawthorne  or  his  sisters  did.  I  have 
been  told  that  when  Hawthorne  wras  a  young 
man,  before  his  marriage,  if  he  had  chosen  to 
enter  Salem's  'first  circle'  he  would  have  been 
welcome  there." 

During  this  last  sojourn  in  his  native  city 
Hawthorne  was  chosen  on  the  committee  for 
the  lyceum  lecture  course,  and  proved  instru 
mental  in  bringing  Webster  to  Salem, — where 
he  had  not  been  popular  since  the  trial  of  the 
two  Knapps, — to  deliver  an  oration  on  the 
Constitution;  of  which  Mrs.  Hawthorne  has 
given  a  graphic  description  in  a  letter  to  her 
mother  on  November  19,  1848: 

"The  old  Lion  walked  the  stage  with  a  sort 
of  repressed  rage,  when  he  referred  to  those 
persons  who  cried  out,  '  Down  with  the  Consti 
tution!'  'Madmen!  Or  most  wicked  if  not 
mad!'  said  he  with  a  glare  of  fire. " 

A  pure  piece  of  acting.  The  national  Consti 
tution  was  not  even  endangered  by  the  Southern 

206 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

rebellion, — much  less  by  the  small  band  of 
original  abolitionists;  and  Webster  was  too 
sensible  not  to  be  aware  of  this. 

While  Hawthorne  was  at  the  Salem  Custom 
House,  he  made  at  least  two  valuable  friends: 
Doctor  George  B.  Loring,  who  had  married  a 
cousin  of  Mrs.  Hawthorne,  and  William  B. 
Pike,  who  occupied  a  subordinate  position  in 
the  Custom  House,  but  whom  Hawthorne 
valued  for  moral  and  intellectual  qualities  of 
which  he  would  seem  to  have  been  the  first 
discoverer.  They  were  not  friends  who  would 
be  likely  to  affect  Hawthorne's  political  views, 
except  to  encourage  him  in  the  direction  to 
which  he  had  always  tended.  Four  years  earlier, 
Doctor  Loring  had  been  on  cordial  terms  with 
Longfellow  and  Sumner,  being  a  refined  and 
intellectual  sort  of  man,  but  like  Hillard,  had 
withdrawn  from  them  on  account  of  political 
differences.  He  was  an  able  public  speaker, 
and  became  a  Democratic  politician,  until  1862, 
when  he  wrent  over  to  the  Republicans;  but 
after  that  he  was  looked  upon  with  a  good  deal 
of  suspicion  by  both  parties.  The  governor 
ship  was  supposed  to  have  been  the  object  of 
his  ambition,  but  he  never  could  obtain  the 
nomination.  Late  in  life  he  was  appointed 
Commissioner  of  Agriculture,  a  post  for  which 
he  was  eminently  fitted,  and  finally  went  to 
Portugal  as  United  States  Minister. 

William  B.  Pike  either  lacked  the  opportunity 
or  the  necessary  concentration  to  develop  his 
genius  in  the  larger  world,  but  Hawthorne 

207 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

continued  to  communicate  with  him  irregularly 
until  the  close  of  his  life.  He  invited  him  to 
Lenox  when  he  resided  there,  and  Mrs.  Lathrop 
recollects  seeing  him  at  the  Wayside  in  Concord, 
after  Hawthorne's  return  from  Europe.  She 
discribes  him  as  a  "short,  sturdy,  phlegmatic 
and  plebeian  looking  man,"  but  with  a  gentle 
step  and  a  finely  modulated  voice.  It  may  have 
been  as  well  for  him  that  he  never  became 
distinguished.* 

The  war  with  Mexico  was  now  fairly  afield, 
and  Franklin  Pierce,  who  left  the  United  States 
Senate  on  account  of  his  wife's  health,  was 
organizing  a  regiment  of  New  Hampshire  vol 
unteers,  as  a  "patriotic  duty."  Salem  people 
thought  differently,  and  party  feeling  there 
soon  rose  to  the  boiling-point.  There  is  no 
other  community  where  political  excitement  is 
so  likely  to  become  virulent  as  in  a  small  city. 
In  a  country  town,  like  Concord,  every  man 
feels  the  necessity  for  conciliating  his  neighbor, 
but  the  moneyed  class  in  Salem  was  sufficient 
for  its  own  purposes,  and  was  opposed  to  the 
war  in  a  solid  body.  The  Whigs  looked  upon 
the  invasion  of  Mexico  as  a  piratical  attempt  of 
the  Democratic  leaders  to  secure  the  permanent 
ascendency  of  their  party,  and  this  was  prob 
ably  the  true  reason  for  Franklin  Pierce 's  join 
ing  it.  In  their  eyes,  Hawthorne  was  the  repre 
sentative  of  a  corrupt  adminstration,  and  they 
would  have  been  more  than  human  if  they  had 


*  Mrs.  Lathrop,  "Memories  of  Hawthorne,"  154. 
208 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

not  wished  him  to  feel  this.  The  Salem  gentry 
could  not  draw  him  into  an  argument  very 
well,  but  they  could  look  daggers  at  him  on 
the  street  and  exhibit  their  coldness  toward 
him  when  they  went  on  business  to  the  Custom 
House.  It  is  evident  that  he  was  made  to 
suffer  in  some  such  manner,  and  to  a  tender 
hearted  man  with  a  clear  conscience,  it  must 
have  seemed  unkind  and  unjust.*  In  his  Custom 
House  preface,  Hawthorne  compares  the  Whigs 
rather  unfavorably  with  the  Democrats,  and 
this  is  not  to  be  wondered  at;  but  he  should 
have  remembered  that  it  was  his  own  party 
which  first  introduced  the  spoils-of -office  system. 
The  first  use  that  Hawthorne  made  of  his 
government  salary  was  to  cancel  his  obligations 
to  the  Concord  tradespeople,  and  the  next  was 
to  provide  a  home  for  his  wife  and  mother. 
They  first  moved  to  18  Chestnut  Street,  in 
June,  1846;  and  thence  to  a  larger  house,  14 
Mall  Street,  in  September,  1847,  in  which  "The 
Snow  Image"  was  prepared  for  publication, 
and  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  was  written.  Haw 
thorne's  study  or  workshop  was  the  front  room 
in  the  third  story,  an  apartment  of  some  width 
but  with  a  ceiling  in  direct  contradiction  to  the 
elevated  thoughts  of  the  writer.  There  is  an 

*  When  the  engagement  between  the  "Chesapeake"  and 
the  "Shannon"  took  place  off  Salem  harbor  in  August, 
1813,  and  Captain  Lawrence  was  killed  in  the  action,  the 
anti-war  sentiment  ran  so  high  that  it  was  difficult  to  find 
a  respectable  mansion  where  his  funeral  would  be  per 
mitted. 

14  209 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

ominous  silence  in  the  American  Note-book 
between  1846  and  1850,  which  is  rather  increased 
than  diminished  by  the  publication  from  his 
diary  of  a  number  of  extracts  concerning  the 
children.  The  babies  of  geniuses  do  not  differ 
essentially  from  those  of  other  people,  and  it 
is  not  supposable  that  Hawthorne's  reflections 
during  this  period  were  wholly  confined  to  his 
own  family.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  fuller  in 
formation  will  yet  be  given  to  the  public  con 
cerning  their  affairs  in  Salem;  for  the  truth 
deserves  to  be  told. 

In  January,  1846,  Mrs.  Hawthorne  wrote  to 
her  mother: 

"No  one,  I  think,  has  a  right  to  break  the  will  of  a  child, 
but  God;  and  if  the  child  is  taught  to  submit  to  Him 
through  love,  all  other  submission  will  follow  with  heavenly 
effect  upon  the  character.  God  never  drives  even  the 
most  desperate  sinner,  but  only  invites  or  suggests  through 
the  events  of  His  providence." 

Nothing  is  more  unfortunate  than  to  break 
the  will  of  a  child,  for  all  manliness  and  woman 
liness  is  grounded  in  the  will;  but  it  is  often 
necessary  to  control  the  desires  and  humors 
of  children  for  their  self-preservation.  Haw 
thorne  himself  was  not  troubled  with  such 
fancies.  Alcott,  who  was  his  nearest  neighbor 
at  the  Wayside,  once  remarked  that  there  was 
only  one  will  in  the  Hawthorne  family,  and 
that  was  Nathaniel's.  His  will  was  law  and 
no  one  thought  of  disputing  it.  Yet  what  he 
writes  concerning  children  is  always  sweet, 
tender,  and  beautiful,  with  the  single  excep- 

2IO 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

tion  of  a  criticism  of  his  own  daughter,  which 
was  published  long  after  his  death  and  could 
not  have  been  intended  for  the  public  eye. 

The  war  with  Mexico  was  wonderfully  suc 
cessful  from  a  military  point  of  view,  but  its 
political  effects  were  equally  confounding  to 
the  politicians  who  projected  it.  The  Ameri 
can  people  resemble  the  French,  quite  as  much 
perhaps  as  they  do  the  English,  and  the  ad 
miration  of  military  glory  is  one  of  their  Gallic 
traits.  It  happened  that  the  two  highest  posi 
tions  in  the  army  were  both  held  by  Whig 
generals,  and  the  victory  of  Buena  Vista  car 
ried  Zachary  Taylor  into  the  White  House,  in 
spite  of  the  opposition  of  Webster  and  Clay, 
as  well  as  that  of  the  Democrats  and  the  Free 
Soilers.  Polk,  Bancroft,  and  Pierce  had  all 
contributed  to  the  defeat  of  their  own  party. 
The  war  proved  their  political  terminus  to  the 
two  former ;  but,  mirabile  dictu,  it  became  the 
cap  of  Fortunatus  to  Pierce  and  Hawthorne. 

This,  however,  could  not  have  been  fore 
seen  at  the  time,  and  the  election  of  Taylor  in  No 
vember,  1848,  had  a  sufficiently  chilling  effect 
on  the  little  family  in  Mall  Street.  Hawthorne 
entertained  the  hope  that  he  might  be  spared 
in  the  general  out-turning,  as  a  distinguished 
writer  and  an  inoffensive  partisan,  and  this 
indicates  how  loath  he  w^as  to  relinquish  his 
comfortable  position.  Let  us  place  ourselves 
in  his  situation  and  we  shall  not  wonder  at  it. 
He  was  now  forty-five,  with  a  wife  and  two 
children,  and  destitution  was  staring  him  in 

211 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

the  face.  For  ten  years  he  had  struggled 
bravely,  and  this  was  the  net  result  of  all  his 
endeavors.  Never  had  the  future  looked  so 
gloomy  to  him. 

The  railroad  had  superseded  his  Uncle  Man 
ning's  business,  as  it  had  that  of  half  the  mer 
cantile  class  in  the  city,  and  his  father-in-law 
was  in  a  somewhat  similar  predicament.  At 
this  time  Elizabeth  Peabody  was  keeping  a 
small  foreign  book-store  in  a  room  of  her  father's 
house  on  West  Street.  One  has  to  realize  these 
conditions,  in  order  to  appreciate  the  mood  in 
which  Hawthorne's  Custom  House  preface  was 
written. 

There  is  one  passage  in  it,  however,  that  is 
always  likely  to  be  misunderstood.  It  is  where 
he  says  : 

"I  thought  my  own  prospects  of  retaining  office,  to  be 
better  than  those  of  my  Democratic  brethren ;  but  who  can 
see  an  inch  into  futurity,  beyond  his  nose?  My  own 
head  was  the  first  that  fell! " 

It  is  clear  that  seme  kind  of  an  effort  was 
made  to  prevent  his  removal,  presumably  by 
George  S.  Hillard,  who  was  a  Whig  in  good 
favor;  but  the  conclusion  which  one  would 
naturally  draw  from  the  above,  that  Hawthorne 
was  turned  out  of  office  in  a  summary  and 
ungracious  manner,  is  not  justified  by  the  evi 
dence.  He  was  not  relieved  from  duty  until 
June  14,  1849;  that  is,  he  was  given  a  hundred 
days  of  grace,  which  is  much  more  than  office 
holders  commonly  are  favored  with,  in  such 

212 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

cases.  We  may  consider  it  morally  certain 
that  Hillard  did  what  he  could  in  Hawthorne's 
behalf.  He  was  well  acquainted  with  Webster, 
but  unfortunately  Webster  had  opposed  the 
nomination  of  General  Taylor,  and  was  so  im 
prudent  as  to  characterize  it  as  a  nomination 
not  fit  to  be  made.  This  was  echoed  all  over 
the  country,  and  left  Webster  without  influ 
ence  at  Washington.  For  the  time  being  Seward 
was  everything,  and  Webster  was  nothing. 

In  a  letter  to  Horace  Mann,  shortly  after 
his  removal,  Hawthorne  refers  to  two  distinct 
calumnies  which  had  been  circulated  con 
cerning  him  in  Salem,  and  only  too  widely 
credited.  The  most  important  of  these — for 
it  has  seriously  compromised  a  number  of 
Salem  gentlemen — was  never  explained  until 
the  publication  of  Mrs.  Lathrop's  "Memories 
of  Hawthorne"  in  1897;  where  we  find  a  letter 
from  Mrs.  Hawthorne  to  her  mother,  dated 
June  10,  1849,  and  containing  the  following 
passage : 

"Here  is  a  pretty  business,  discovered  in  an  unexpected 
manner  to  Mr.  Hawthorne  by  a  friendly  and  honorable 
Whig.  Perhaps  you  know  that  the  President  said  before 
he  took  the  chair  that  he  should  make  no  removals  ex 
cept  for  dishonesty  and  unfaithfulness.  It  is  very  plain 
that  neither  of  these  charges  could  be  brought  against 
Mr.  Hawthorne.  Therefore  a  most  base  and  incredible 
falsehood  has  been  told — written  down  and  signed  and  sent 
to  the  Cabinet  in  secret.  This  infamous  paper  certifies 
among  other  things  (of  which  we  have  not  heard) — that 
Mr.  Hawthorne  has  been  in  the  habit  of  writing  political 
articles  in  magazines  and  newspapers!" 

213 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

So  it  appears  that  the  gutta-percha  formula* 
of  President  Cleveland  in  regard  to  "offensive 
partisanship"  was  really  invented  forty  years 
before  his  time,  and  had  as  much  value  in  one 
case  as  in  the  other.  It  is  possible  that  such 
a  document  as  Mrs.  Hawthorne  describes  was 
circulated,  signed,  and  sent  to  Washington,  to 
make  the  way  easy  for  President  Taylor's 
advisers,  and  if  so  it  was  a  highly  contemptible 
proceeding;  but  the  statement  rests  wholly 
on  the  affirmation  of  a  single  witness,  whose 
name  has  always  been  withheld,  and  even  if  it 
were  true  that  Hawthorne  had  written  political 
articles  for  Democratic  papers  the  fact  would 
have  in  no  wise  been  injurious  to  his  reputa 
tion.  The  result  must  have  been  the  same  in 
any  case.  General  Taylor  was  an  honorable 
man,  and  no  doubt  intended  to  keep  his  word, 
as  other  Presidents  have  intended  since;  but 
what  could  even  a  brave  general  effect  against 
the  army  of  hungry  office-seekers  who  were 
besieging  the  White  House, — a  more  formid 
able  army  than  the  Mexicans  whom  he  had 
defeated  at  Buena  Vista?  In  all  probability 
he  knew  nothing  of  Hawthorne  and  never 
heard  of  his  case. 

The  second  calumny  which  Hawthorne  refers 
to  was  decidedly  second-rate,  and  closely  re 
sembles  a  servant's  intrigue.  The  Department 
at  Washington,  in  a  temporary  fit  of  economy, 


*  By  which  eighty-eight  per  cent,  of  the  classified  service 
were  removed. 

214 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

had  requested  him  to  discharge  two  of  his  super 
visors.  He  did  not  like  to  take  the  men's  bread 
away  from  them,  and  made  a  mild  protest 
against  the  order.  At  the  same  time  he  con 
sulted  his  chief  clerk  as  to  what  it  might  be 
best  to  do,  and  they  agreed  upon  suspending 
two  of  the  supervisors  who  might  suffer  less 
from  it  than  some  others.  As  it  happened, 
the  Department  considered  Hawthorne's  report 
favorably,  and  no  suspension  took  place;  but 
his  clerk  betrayed  the  secret  to  the  two  men 
concerned,  who  hated  Hawthorne  in  conse 
quence,  and  afterward  circulated  a  report  that 
he  had  threatened  to  discharge  them  unless 
they  contributed  to  the  Democratic  campaign 
fund.  This  return  of  evil  for  good  appears  to 
have  been  a  new  experience  for  Hawthorne, 
but  those  who  are  much  concerned  in  the  affairs 
of  the  world  soon  become  accustomed  to  it, 
and  pay  little  attention  to  either  the  malice  or 
the  mendacity  of  mankind. 

Twenty  years  later  one  of  Hawthorne's  clerks, 
who  had  prudently  shifted  from  the  Democratic 
to  the  Republican  ranks,  held  a  small  office  in 
the  Boston  Navy  Yard,  and  was  much  given  to 
bragging  of  his  intimacy  with  "  Nat, "  and  of 
the  sprees  they  went  on  together;  but  the  style 
and  description  of  the  man  were  sufficient  to 
discredit  his  statements  without  further  evi 
dence.  There  were,  however,  several  old  ship 
masters  in  the  Salem  Custom  House  who  had 
seen  Calcutta,  Canton,  and  even  a  hurricane 
or  two;  men  who  had  lived  close  to  reality, 

215 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

mth  a  vein  of  true  heroism  in  them,  moreover; 
and  if  Hawthorne  preferred  their  conversation 
to  that  of  the  shipowners,  who  haol  spent 
their  lives  in  calculating  the  profits  of  commercial 
adventures,  there  are  many  among  the  well 
educated  who  would  agree  with  him.  He  refers 
particularly  to  one  aged  inspector  of  imports, 
whose  remarkable  adventures  by  flood  and 
field  were  an  almost  daily  recreation  to  him; 
and  if  the  narratives  of  this  ancient  mariner 
were  somewhat  mixed  with  romance,  assuredly 
Hawthorne  should  have  been  the  last  person  to 
complain  of  them  on  that  account. 

At  first  he  was  wholly  unnerved  by  his  dis 
missal.  He  returned  to  Mall  Street  and  said 
to  his  wife:  "I  have  lost  my  place.  What 
shall  we  now  do  for  bread?"  But  Mrs.  Haw 
thorne  replied:  " Never  fear.  You  will  now 
have  leisure  to  finish  your  novel.  Meanwhile, 
I  will  earn  bread  for  us  with  my  pencil  and 
paint-brush."*  Besides  this,  she  brought  for 
ward  two  or  three  hundred  dollars,  which  she 
had  saved  from  his  salary  unbeknown  to  him; 
but  who  would  not  have  been  encouraged  by 
such  a  brave  wife?  Fortunately  her  pencil  and 
paint-brush  were  not  put  to  the  test;  at  least 
so  far  as  we  know.  Already  on  June  8,  her 
husband  had  written  a  long  letter  to  Hillard, 
explaining  the  state  of  his  affairs  and  contain 
ing  this  pathetic  appeal : 

"If  you  could  do  anything  in  the  way  of  procuring  me 
some  stated  literary  employment,  in  connection  with  a  news- 

*  Mrs.  George  S.  Hillard. 
216 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

paper,  or  as  corrector  of  the  press  to  some  printing  estab 
lishment,  etc.,  it  could  not  come  at  a  better  time.  Perhaps 
Epes  Sargent,  who  is  a  friend  of  mine,  would  know  of  some 
thing.  I  shall  not  stand  upon  my  dignity;  that  must  take 
care  of  itself.  Perhaps  there  may  be  some  subordinate 
office  connected  with  the  Boston  Athenaeum  (Literary). 
Do  not  think  anything  too  humble  to  be  mentioned 
to  me."* 

There  have  been  many  tragical  episodes  in 
the  history  of  literature,  but  since  "Paradise 
Lost"  was  sold  for  five  pounds  and  a  contin 
gent  interest,  there  has  been  nothing  more  simply 
pathetic  than  this, — that  an  immortal  writer 
should  feel  obliged  to  apply  for  a  subordinate 
position  in  a  counting-room,  a  description  of 
work  which  nobody  likes  too  well,  and  which 
to  Hawthorne  would  have  been  little  less  than 
a  death  in  life.  "  Do  not  think  anything  too 
humble  to  be  mentioned  to  me"  ! 

What  Hillard  attempted  to  do  at  this  time 
is  uncertain,  but  he  was  not  the  man  to  allow 
the  shrine  of  genius  to  be  converted  into  a  gas- 
burner,  if  he  could  possibly  prevent  it.  We 
may  presume  that  he  went  to  Salem  and  en 
couraged  Hawthorne  in  his  amiable,  half-elo 
quent  manner.  But  we  do  not  hear  of  him 
again  until  the  new  year.  Meanwhile  Madam 
Hawthorne  fell  into  her  last  illness  and  departed 
this  life  on  July  3 1 ;  a  solemn  event  even  to  a 
hard-hearted  son — how  much  more  to  such  a 
man  as  she  had  brought  into  the  world.  Three 
days  before  her  death,  he  writes  in  his  diary  of 
"her  heart  beating  its  funeral  march,"  and 

*  Conway,    113. 
217 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

diverts  his  mind  from  the  awful  finale  by  an 
accurate  description  of  his  two  children  playing 
a  serio-comic  game  of  doctor  and  patient,  in 
the  adjoining  room. 

It  was  under  such  tragical  conditions,  well 
suited  to  the  subject,  that  he  continued  his 
work  on  "The  Scarlet  Letter,"  and  his  pain 
fully  contracted  brow  seemed  to  indicate  that 
he  suffered  as  much  in  imagination,  as  the 
characters  in  that  romance  are  represented  to 
have  suffered.  In  addition  he  wrote  "The 
Great  Stone  Face,"  one  of  the  most  impres 
sive  of  his  shorter  pieces  (published,  alas!  in  a 
Washington  newspaper),  and  the  sketch  called 
"Main  Street,"  both  afterward  included  in  the 
volume  of  "The  Snow  Image."  On  January 
17,  1850,  he  was  greatly  surprised  to  receive  a 
letter  from  George  S.  Hillard  with  a  large  check 
in  it, — more  than  half-way  to  a  thousand  dol 
lars, — which  the  writer  with  all  possible  delicacy 
begged  him  to  accept  from  a  few  of  his  Boston 
admirers.  It  was  only  from  such  a  good  friend 
as  Hillard  that  Hawthorne  would  have  accepted 
assistance  in  this  form ;  but  he  always  considered 
it  in  the  character  of  a  loan,  and  afterward 
insisted  on  repaying  it  to  the  original  sub 
scribers, — Professor  Ticknor,  Judge  Curtis,  and 
others.  Hillard  also  persuaded  James  T.  Fields, 
the  younger  partner  of  Ticknor  &  Company,  to 
take  an  interest  in  Hawthorne  as  an  author 
who  required  to  be  encouraged,  and  perhaps 
coaxed  a  little,  in  order  to  bring  out  the  best 
that  was  in  him. 

218 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Fields  accordingly  went  to  Salem  soon  after 
ward,  and  has  given  an  account  of  his  first 
interview  with  Hawthorne  in  "Yesterdays  with 
Authors,"  which  seems  rather  melodramatic: 
" found  him  cowering  over  a  stove,"  and  al 
together  in  a  woe -begone  condition.  The  main 
point  of  discussion  between  them,  however, 
was  whether  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  should  be 
published  separately  or  in  conjunction  with 
other  subjects.  Hawthorne  feared  that  such  a 
serious  plot,  continued  with  so  little  diversity 
of  motive,  would  not  be  likely  to  produce  a 
favorable  impression  unless  it  were  leavened 
with  material  of  a  different  kind.  Fields,  on 
the  contrary,  thought  it  better  that  the  w^ork 
should  stand  by  itself,  in  solitary  grandeur, 
and  feared  that  it  would  only  be  dwarfed  by 
any  additions  of  a  different  kind.  He  pre 
dicted  a  good  sale  for  the  book,  and  succeeded 
in  disillusionizing  Hawthorne  from  the  notions 
he  had  acquired  from  the  failure  of  "  Fanshawe.  " 

As  it  was  late  in  the  season,  Fields  would  not 
even  wait  for  the  romance  to  be  finished,  but 
sent  it  to  the  press  at  once ;  and  on  February  4, 
Hawthorne  wrote  to  Horatio  Bridge: 

' '  I  finished  my  book  only  yesterday ;  one  end  being  in 
the  press  at  Boston,  while  the  other  was  in  my  head  here 
at  Salem;  so  that,  as  you  see,  the  story  is  at  least  fourteen 
miles  long. " 

The  time  of  publication  was  a  propitious  one: 
the  gold  was  flowing  in  from  California,  and 
every  man  and  woman  had  a  dollar  to  spend. 
The  first  edition  of  five  thousand  copies  was 

219 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

taken  up  within  a  month,  and  after  this  Haw 
thorne  suffered  no  more  financial  embarrass 
ments.  The  succeeding  twelve  years  of  his 
life  were  as  prosperous  and  cheerful  as  his  friends 
and  readers  could  desire  for  him;  although 
the  sombre  past  still  seemed  to  cast  a  ghostly 
shadow  across  his  way,  which  even  the  sunshine 
of  Italy  could  not  entirely  dissipate. 

"THE  SCARLET  LETTER" 

The  germ  of  this  romance  is  to  be  found  in 
the  tale  of  "Endicott  and  the  Red  Cross," 
published  in  the  Token  in  1838,  so  that  it  must 
hafe  been  at  least  ten  years  sprouting  and 
developing  in  Hawthorne's  mind.  In  that 
story  he  gives  a  tragically  comic  description 
of  the  Puritan  penitentiary, — in  the  public 
square, — where,  among  others,  a  good-looking 
young  woman  was  exposed  with  a  red  letter 
A  on  her  breast,  which  she  had  embroidered 
herself,  so  elegantly  that  it  seemed  as  if  it  was 
rather  intended  for  a  badge  of  distinction  than 
as  a  mark  of  infamy.  Hawthorne  did  not 
conjure  this  up  wholly  out  of  his  imagination, 
for  in  1704  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  passed  the  following  law,  which  he  was  no 
doubt  aware  of: 

"Convicted  before  the  Justice  of  Assize, — both  Man  and 
Woman  to  be  set  on,  the  Gallows  an  Hour  with  a  Rope 
about  their  Necks  and  the  other  end  cast  over  the  Gal 
lowses.  And  in  the  way  from  thence  to  the  common 
Gaol,  to  he  Scourged  not  exceeding  Forty  Stripes.  And 
forever  after  to  wear  a  Capital  A  of  two  inches  long,  of  a 
contrary  colour  to  their  cloathes,  sewed  on  their  upper 

220 


JVER, 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 


Garments,  on  the  Back  or  Arm,  in  open  view.  And  as  often 
as  they  appear  without  it,  openly  to  be  Scourged,  not  ex 
ceeding  Fifteen  Stripes."  * 

The  most  diligent  investigation,  however, 
has  failed  to  discover  an  instance  in  which 
punishment  was  inflicted  under  this  law,  so 
that  we  must  conclude  that  Hawthorne  in 
vented  that  portion  of  his  statement.  In  fact, 
nothing  that  Hawthorne  published  himself 
is  to  be  considered  of  historical  or  biographical 
value.  It  is  all  fiction.  He  sported  with  his 
torical  facts  and  traditions,  as  poets  and  painters 
always  have  done,  and  the  manuscript  which 
he  pretends  to  have  discovered  in  his  office  at 
the  Custom  House,  written  by  one  of  his  pre 
decessors  there,  is  a  piece  of  pure  imagination, 
which  serves  to  give  additional  credibility  to 
his  narrative.  He  knew  well  enough  how 
large  a  portion  of  what  is  called  history  is  fiction 
after  all,  and  the  extent  to  which  professed 
historians  deal  in  romance.  He  felt  that  he 
was  justified  so  long  as  he  did  not  depart  from 
the  truth  of  human  nature.  We  may  thank 
him  that  he  did  not  dispel  the  illusion  of  his 
poetic  imagery  by  the  introduction  of  well- 
known  historical  characters.  This  is  permis 
sible  in  a  certain  class  of  novels,  but  its  effect 
is  always  more  or  less  prosaic. 

Our  Puritan  ancestors  evidently  did  not 
realize  the  evil  effects  of  their  law  against 
faithless  wives, — its  glaring  indelicacy,  and 


*  Boston,  Timothy  Green,  1704. 

221 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

brutalizing  influence  on  the  minds  of  the  young ; 
but  it  was  of  a  piece  with  their  exclusion  of 
church-music  and  other  amenities  of  civili 
zation.  Was  it  through  a  natural  attraction 
for  the  primeval  granite  that  they  landed  on 
the  New  England  coast?  Their  severe  self- 
discipline  was  certainly  well  adapted  to  their 
situation,  but,  while  it  built  up  their  social 
edifice  on  an  enduring  foundation,  its  tendency 
was  to  crush  out  the  gentler  and  more  sym 
pathetic  qualities  in  human  nature.  In  no 
other  community  would  the  story  of  Hester 
Prynne  acquire  an  equal  cogency  and  signifi 
cance.  A  German  might,  perhaps,  understand 
it;  but  a  Frenchman  or  an  Italian  not  at  all. 
The  same  subject  has  been  treated  in  its 
most  venial  form  by  Shakespeare  in  "  Measure 
for  Measure, "  and  in  its  most  condemnable 
form  in  Goethe's  "  Faust.  "  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  " 
lies  midway  between  these  two.  Hester  Prynne 
has  married  a  man  of  morose,  vindictive  dis 
position,  such  as  no  woman  could  be  happy 
with.  He  is,  moreover,  much  older  than  her 
self,  and  has  gone  off  on  a  wild  expedition  in 
pursuit  of  objects  which  he  evidently  cares 
for,  more  than  for  his  wife.  She  has  not  heard 
from  him  for  over  a  year,  and  knows  not  whether 
he  has  deserted  her,  or  if  he  is  no  longer  living. 
She  is  alone  in  a  strange  wild  country,  and  it 
is  natural  that  she  should  seek  counsel  and 
encouragement  from  the  young  clergyman,  \^ho 
is  worthy  of  her  love,  but,  unfortunately,  not 
a  strong  character.  Lightning  is  not  swifter 

222 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

than  the  transition  in  our  minds  from  good  to 
evil,  and  in  an  unguarded  moment  he  brings 
ruin  upon  himself,  and  a  life-long  penance  on 
Hester  Prynne.  Hawthorne  tells  this  story 
with  such  purity  and  delicacy  of  feeling  that  a 
maiden  of  sixteen  can  read  it  without  offence. 

"The  Scarlet  Letter"  is  at  once  the  most 
poetic  and  the  most  powerful  of  Hawthorne's 
larger  works,  much  more  powerful  than  "The 
Vicar  of  Wakefield, "  which  has  been  accepted 
as  the  type  of  a  romance  in  all  languages.  Gold 
smith's  tale  will  always  be  more  popular  than 
"The  Scarlet  Letter,"  owing  to  its  blithesome 
spirit,  its  amusing  incidents  and  bright  effects 
of  light  and  shade;  but  "The  Scarlet  Letter" 
strikes  a  more  penetrating  chord  in  the  human 
breast,  and  adheres  more  closely  to  the  truth 
of  life.  There  are  certain  highly  improbable 
circumstances  woven  in  the  tissue  of  uThe 
Vicar  of  Wakefield, "  which  a  prudent,  reflec 
tive  reader  finds  it  difficult  to  surmount.  It 
is  rather  surprising  that  the  Vicar  should  not 
have  discovered  the  true  social  position  of  his 
friend  Mr.  Burchell,  which  must  have  been 
known  to  every  farmer  in  the  vicinity;  and 
still  more  so  that  Mr.  Burchell  should  have 
permitted  the  father  of  a  young  woman  in  whom 
he  was  deeply  interested,  to  be  carried  to  prison 
for  debt  without  making  an  inquiry  into  his 
case.  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  is,  as  Hawthorne 
noticed,  a  continual  variation  on  a  single  theme, 
ancPthat  a  decidedly  solemn  one;  but  its  dif 
ferent  incidents  form  a  dynamic  sequence, 

223 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

leading  onward  to  the  final  catastrophe,  and  if 
its  progress  is  slow — the  narrative  extends 
over  a  period  of  seven  years — this  is  as  inevi 
table  as  the  march  of  Fate.  From  the  first 
scene  in  the  drama,  we  are  lifted  above  our 
selves,  and  sustained  so  by  Hawthorne's  genius, 
until  the  close. 

This  sense  of  power  arises  from  dealing  with 
a  subject  which  demanded  the  whole  force 
and  intensity  of  Hawthorne's  nature.  Hester 
Prynne  herself  is  a  strong  character,  and  her 
errors  are  those  of  strength  and  independence 
rather  than  of  weakness.  She  says  to  Mr. 
Dimmesdale  that  what  they  did  "had  a  con 
secration  of  its  own, "  and  it  is  this  belief  which 
supports  her  under  a  weight  of  obloquy  that 
would  have  crushed  a  more  fragile  spirit. 
She  does  not  collapse  into  a  pitiful  nonentity, 
like  Scott's  Effie  Deans,  nor  is  she  maddened 
to  crime  like  George  Eliot's  "Hetty  Sorrel";* 
but  from  the  outset  she  forms  definite  resolu 
tions, — first  to  rehabilitate  her  own  character, 
and  next  to  protect  the  partner  of  her  shame. 
This  last  may  seem  to  be  a  mistaken  devotion, 
and  contrary  to  his  true  interest,  for  the  first 
step  in  the  regeneration  from  sin  is  to  acknowl 
edge  manfully  the  responsibility  of  it;  but 
to  give  the  repentance  even  the  appearance  of 
sincerity,  the  confession  must  be  a  voluntary 
one,  and  not  be  forced  upon  the  delinquent 
person  by  external  pressure.  We  cannot  with- 

*  A  name  apparently  compounded  from  Hester  Prynne 
and  Schiller's  Agnes  Sorrel. 

224 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

hold  our  admiration  for  Hester's  unswerving 
fidelity  to  this  twofold  purpose.  We  may  con 
demn  her  in  our  minds,  but  we  cannot  refuse 
her  a  measure  of  sympathy  in  our  hearts. 

I  believe  this  to  be  the  explanation  of  her 
apparent  inconsistency  at  the  close  of  the 
book.  Many  of  Hawthorne's  commentators 
have  been  puzzled  by  the  fact  that  Hester, 
after  so  many  years  of  contrition,  should  advise 
Dimmesdale  to  fly  to  England,  and  even  offered 
to  accompany  him.  Women  have  not  the 
same  idea  of  law  that  men  have.  In  their  ideas 
of  right  and  wrong  they  depend  chiefly  on 
their  sense  of  purity;  and  it  is  very  difficult 
to  persuade  a  woman  that  she  could  be  wrong 
in  obeying  the  dictates  of  her  heart.  Hester 
perceives  that  her  former  lover  is  being  tortured 
to  death  by  the  silent  tyranny  of  Chillingworth ; 
the  tide  of  affection  so  long  restrained  flows 
back  into  her  soul;  and  her  own  reputation 
is  as  nothing  compared  with  the  life  of  the  man 
she  hopes  to  save.  There  is  no  other  passage 
in  American  fiction  so  pathetic  as  that  wood 
land  meeting,  at  which  their  mutual  hopes  of 
happiness  blaze  up  like  the  momentary  bright 
ness  of  a  dying  flame.  Hester's  innocent  child, 
however,  representing  the  spirit  of  truthful 
ness,  is  suddenly  seized  with  an  aversion  to  her 
father  and  refuses  to  join  their  company, — an 
unfavorable  omen  and  dark  presage  of  the 
minister's  doom. 

Pearl's  behavior,  on  this  occasion,  may  be 
supposed  to  represent  the  author's  own  judg- 

15  225 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

ment.  How  far  shall  we  agree  with  him?  The 
past  generation  witnessed  one  of  the  noblest 
of  women  uniting  herself,  for  life  and  death,  to 
a  man  whom  she  could  not  marry  on  account 
of  purely  legal  objections.  Whether  Hester's 
position  in  the  last  act  of  this  drama  is  com 
parable  with  that  of  Marian  Evans  every  one 
must  decide  according  to  his  or  her  conscience. 

Hawthorne  certainly  proves  himself  a  good 
Puritan  when  he  says,  "And  be  the  stern  and 
sad  truth  spoken  that  the  breach  which  guilt 
has  once  made  into  the  human  soul,  is  never  in 
this  mortal  state  repaired."  The  magnitude 
of  the  evil  of  course  makes  a  difference ;  but  do 
we  not  all  live  in  a  continual  state  of  sinning, 
and  self-correction?  That  is  the  road  to  self- 
improvement,  and  those  who  adhere  most  closely 
to  inflexible  rules  of  conduct  discover  at  length 
that  the  rules  themselves  have  become  an  evil. 
Mankind  has  not  yet  fully  decided  as  to  what 
things  are  evil,  and  what  are  good;  and  neither 
Hawthorne  nor  the  Puritan  lawmakers  would 
seem  to  have  remembered  Christ's  admonition  on 
a  similar  occasion:  "Let  him  who  is  without 
sin  among  you,  cast  the  first  stone." 

A  writer  in  the  Andover  Review,  some  twenty 
years  ago,  criticised  the  impersonation  of 
Pearl  as  a  fable — "  a  golden  wreck. "  He  quoted 
Emerson  to  the  effect  that  in  all  the  ages  that 
man  has  been  upon  the  earth,  no  communica 
tion  has  been  established  between  him  and  the 
lower  animals,  and  he  affirmed  that  we  know 
quite  as  little  of  the  thoughts  and  motives  of 

226 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

our  own  children.  Both  conclusions  are  wide  of 
the  mark.  There  is  much  more  communication 
between  man  and  the  domestic  animals  than 
between  animals  of  the  same  species.  The 
understanding  between  an  Arab  and  his  horse 
is  almost  perfect,  and  so  is  that  between  a  sports 
man  and  his  setters.  Even  the  sluggish  ox 
knows  the  word  of  command.  Then  what  shall 
we  say  of  the  sympathetic  relation  between  a 
mother  and  her  child?  Who  can  describe  it  — 
that  clairvoyant  sensibility,  intangible,  too  swift 
for  words?  Who  has  depicted  it,  except  Haw 
thorne  and  Raphael?  Pearl  is  like  a  pure  spirit 
in  "The  Scarlet  Letter,"  reconciling  us  to  its 
gloomy  scenes.  She  is  like  the  sunshine  in  a 
dark  forest,  breaking  through  the  tree-tops  and 
dancing  in  our  pathway.  It  is  true  that  Haw 
thorne  has  carried  her  clairvoyant  insight  to 
its  furthest  limits,  but  this  is  in  accordance  with 
the  ideal  character  of  his  work.  She  has  no 
rival  except  Goethe's  Mignon. 

Hawthorne's  method  of  developing  his  stories 
resembled  closely  that  of  the  historical  painter; 
and  it  was  only  in  this  way  that  he  could  pro 
duce  such  vivid  effects.  He  selected  models 
for  his  principal  characters  and  studied  them 
as  his  work  progressed.  The  original  of  Reverend 
Mr.  Dimmesdale  was  quickly  recognized  in  Salem 
as  an  amiable  inoffensive  person,  of  whom  no  one 
suspected  any  evil, — and  that  was,  no  doubt, 
the  reason  why  Hawthorne  selected  him  for  his 
purpose.  It  was  no  discredit  to  the  man  him 
self,  although  tongues  were  not  wanting  to 

227 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

blame  Hawthorne  for  it.  Who  Hester  may 
have  been  still  remains  a  mystery;  but  it  was 
evidently  some  one  with  whom  the  author  was 
well  acquainted, — perhaps  his  younger  sister. 
So  Rubens  painted  his  own  wife  at  one  time  an 
angel,  and  at  another  in  the  likeness  of  Herodias. 
It  is  still  more  probable  that  Pearl  is  a  picture 
of  Hawthorne's  own  daughter,  who  was  of  the 
right  age  for  such  a  study,  and  whose  sprightly, 
fitful,  and  impulsive  actions  correspond  to 
those  of  Hester's  child.  This  would  also  ex 
plain  why  her  father  gave  Una  so  much  space 
in  his  Note-book.  He  may  have  noticed  the 
antagonism  between  her  and  the  Whig  children 
of  the  neighborhood  and  have  applied  it  to 
Pearl's  case.  It  was  also  his  custom,  as  ap 
pears  from  his  last  unfinished  work,  to  leave 
blank  spaces  in  his  manuscript  while  in  the 
heat  of  composition,  which,  like  a  painter's 
background,  were  afterwards  filled  in  with 
descriptions  of  scenery  or  some  subsidiary 
narrative. 

The  models  of  the  novelist  cannot  be  hired 
for  the  purpose,  like  those  used  by  the  painter 
or  sculptor,  but  have  to  be  studied  when  and 
where  they  can  be  found,  for  the  least  self- 
consciousness  spoils  the  effect.  Hawthorne 
in  this  only  followed  the  example  of  the  best 
authors  and  dramatists;  and  those  who  think 
that  good  fiction  or  dramatic  poetry  can  be 
written  wholly  out  of  a  man's  or  a  woman's 
imagination,  would  do  well  to  make  the  experi 
ment  themselves. 

228 


CHAPTER  XI 

PEGASUS  is  FREE:    1850-1852 

FREDERICK  W.  LORING,  that  bright  young 
poet  who  was  so  soon  lost  to  us,  once  remarked : 
"Appreciation  is  to  the  artist  what  sunshine  is 
to  flowers.  He  cannot  expand  without  it." 
The  success  of  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  proved 
that  all  Hawthorne's  genius  required  was  a 
little  moderate  encouragement, — not  industry 
but  opportunity.  His  pen,  no  longer  slow  and 
hesitating,  moved  freer  and  easier;  the  long 
pent-up  flood  of  thoughts,  emotions,  and  ex 
periences  had  at  length  found  an  outlet;  and 
the  next  three  years  were  the  most  productive 
of  his  life. 

His  first  impulse,  however,  was  to  escape 
from  Salem.  Although  his  removal  from  office 
had  been  a  foregone  conclusion,  Hawthorne 
felt  a  certain  degree  of  chagrin  connected  with 
it,  and  also  imagined  a  certain  amount  of  ani 
mosity  toward  himself  which  made  the  place 
uncomfortable  to  him.  He  was  informed  that 
the  old  Sparhawk  mansion,  close  to  the  Ports 
mouth  Navy  Yard,  was  for  sale  or  to  rent,  and 
the  first  of  May,  Hawthorne  went  thither  to 
consider  whether  it  would  serve  him  for  a  home.* 
One  would  suppose  that  sedate  old  Portsmouth, 
with  its  courteous  society  and  its  dash  of  military 


*  Lathrop,  225. 
229 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

life,  would  have  suited  Hawthorne  even  better 
than  Concord;  but  he  decided  differently,  and 
he  returned  to  meet  his  family  in  Boston,  where 
he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Professor  Ticknor, 
who  introduced  him  at  the  Athenaeum  Library. 
He  saw  Hildreth  at  the  Athenasum  working  on 
his  history  of  the  United  States;  sat  for  his 
portrait  to  C.  E.  Thompson ;  went  to  the  theatre ; 
studied  human  nature  in  the  smoking-room  at 
Parker's;  and  relaxed  himself  generally.  He 
must  have  stayed  with  his  family  at  Doctor 
Peabody's  on  West  Street,  for  he  speaks  of  the 
incessant  noise  from  Washington  Street,  and 
of  looking  out  from  the  back  windows  on  Temple 
Place.  This  locates  the  house  very  nearly. 

Two  months  later,  July  5,  1850,  he  was  at 
Lenox,  in  the  Berkshire  Mountains.  Mrs. 
Caroline  Sturgis  Tappan,  a  brilliant  Boston 
lady,  equally  poetic  and  sensible,  owned  a  small 
red  cottage  there,  which  she  was  ready  to  lease 
to  Hawthorne  for  a  nominal  rent.  Lowell  was 
going  there  on  account  of  his  wife,  a  delicate 
flower-like  nature  already  beginning  to  droop. 
Doctor  Holmes  was  going  on  account  of  Lowell, 
and  perhaps  with  the  expectation  of  seeing  a 
rattlesnake;  Fields  was  going  on  account  of 
Lowell  and  Holmes.  Mrs.  Frances  Kemble, 
already  the  most  distinguished  of  Shakespearian 
readers,  had  a  summer  cottage  there;  and  it 
was  hoped  that  in  such  company  Hawthorne 
would  at  last  find  the  element  to  which  he 
properly  belonged. 

Unfortunately  Hawthorne  took  to  raising 
230 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

chickens,  and  that  seems  to  have  interested 
him  more  than  anything  else  at  Lenox.  He  fell 
in  cordially  with  the  plans  of  his  friends;  as 
cended  Monument  Mountain,  and  went  on 
other  excursions  with  them;  but  it  may  be 
more  than  suspected  that  Lowell  and  Holmes 
did  most  of  the  talking.  He  assimilated  himself 
more  to  Holmes  perhaps  than  to  any  of  the 
others.  His  meeting  with  Mrs.  Kemble  must 
have  been  like  a  collision  of  the  centrifugal  and 
centripetal  forces;  and  for  once,  Hawthorne 
may  be  said  to  have  met  his  antipodes.  They 
could  sincerely  admire  one  another  as  we 
all  do,  in  their  respective  spheres;  but  such  a 
chasm  as  yawned  between  them  in  difference 
of  temperament,  character,  and  mode  of  living, 
could  not  have  been  bridged  over  by  Captain 
Eads. 

Fannie  Kemble,  as  she  was  universally  called, 
had  by  long  and  sympathetic  reading  of  Shake 
speare  transformed  herself  into  a  woman  of  the 
Elizabethan  era,  and  could  barely  be  said  to  be 
long  to  the  nineteenth  century.  Among  other 
Elizabethan  traits  she  had  acquired  an  uncon 
sciousness  of  self,  together  with  an  enormous  self- 
confidence,  and  no  idea  of  what  people  thought  of 
her  in  polite  society  ever  seems  to  have  occurred 
to  her.  She  had  the  heart  of  a  woman,  but 
mentally  she  was  like  a  composite  picture  of 
Shakespeare's  dramatis  persona,  and  that  Emer 
son  should  have  spoken  of  her  as  "a  great 
exaggerated  creature"  is  not  to  be  wondered  at. 
In  her  own  department  she  was  marvellous. 

231 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

The  severity  of  a  mountain  winter  and  the 
disagreeableness  of  its  thawing  out  in  spring,  is 
atoned  for  by  its  summer, — that  fine  exhila 
rating  ether,  which  seems  to  bring  elevated 
thoughts,  by  virtue  of  its  own  nature.  Haw 
thorne  enjoyed  this  with  his  children  and  his 
chickens;  and  his  wife  enjoyed  it  with  him. 
It  is  evident  from  her  letters  that  she  had  not 
been  so  happy  since  their  first  year  at  the  Old 
Manse.  She  had  now  an  opportunity  to  in 
dulge  her  love  of  artistic  decoration,  in  adorn 
ing  the  walls  of  their  little  red  cottage,  which 
has  since  unfortunately  been  destroyed  by  fire. 
She  even  began  to  give  her  daughter,  who  was 
only  six  years  old,  some  instruction  in  drawing. 
The  following  extract  concerning  her  husband, 
from  a  letter  written  to  her  mother,  is  charm 
ingly  significant  of  her  state  of  mind  at  this  time. 

"  Beauty  and  the  love  of  it,  in  him,  are  the 
true  culmination  of  the  good  and  true,  and 
there  is  no  beauty  to  him  without  these  bases. 
He  has  perfect  dominion  over  himself  in  every 
respect,  so  that  to  do  the  highest,  wisest,  love 
liest  thing  is  not  the  least  effort  to  him,  any 
more  than  it  is  to  a  baby  to  be  innocent.  It  is 
his  spontaneous  act,  and  a  baby  is  not  more 
unconscious  in  its  innocence.  I  never  knew 
such  loftiness,  so  simply  borne.  I  have  never 
known  him  to  stoop  from  it  in  the  most  trivial 
household  matter,  any  more  than  in  a  larger 
or  more  public  one."* 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  373. 
232 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Truly  this  gives  us  a  beautiful  insight  into 
their  home-life,  and  Hawthorne  himself  could 
not  have  written  a  more  accurate  eulogium. 
As  intimated  in  the  last  chapter,  we  all  make 
our  way  through  life  by  correcting  our  daily 
trespasses,  and  Hawthorne  was  no  exception 
to  it;  but  as  a  mental  analysis  of  this  man  at 
his  best  Mrs.  Hawthorne's  statement  deserves  a 
lasting  recognition. 

"THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  SEVEN  GABLES" 

It  was  not  until  early  frosts  and  shortening 
days  drove  Hawthorne  within  doors  that  he 
again  took  up  his  writing,  but  who  can  tell  how 
long  he  had  been  dreaming  over  his  subject? 
Within  five  months,  or  by  the  last  week  of 
January,  "The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables" 
was  ready  for  the  press.  There  is  no  such  house 
in  Salem,  exactly  as  he  describes  it;  but  an 
odd,  antiquated-looking  structure  at  No.  54 
Turner  Street  is  supposed  to  have  served  him 
for  the  suggestion  of  it.  The  name  is  picturesque 
and  well  suited  to  introduce  the  reader  to  a 
homely  suburban  romance. 

The  subject  of  the  story  goes  back  to  the 
witchcraft  period,  and  its  active  principle  is  a 
wizard's  curse,  which  descends  from  one  gener 
ation  to  another,  until  it  is  finally  removed  by 
the  marriage  of  a  descendant  of  the  injured 
party  to  a  descendant  of  the  guilty  one.  Woven 
together  with  this,  there  is  an  exposition  of 
mesmerism,  or,  as  it  is  now  called,  Christian 
Science,  with  its  good  and  evil  features. 

233 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Each  of  Hawthorne's  larger  romances  has  a 
distinct  style  and  quality  of  its  own,  apart 
from  the  fine  individualized  style  of  the  author. 
Lathrop  makes  an  excellent  remark  in  regard 
to  "The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  that  the 
perfection  of  its  art  seems  to  stand  between 
the  reader  and  his  subject.  It  resembles  in  this 
respect  those  Dutch  paintings  whose  enamelled 
surface  seems  like  a  barrier  to  prevent  the 
spectator  from  entering  the  scenes  which  they 
represent.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to  consider 
this  a  fault,  but  one  cannot  help  noticing  the 
accuracy  with  which  the  subordinate  details 
of  the  plot  are  elaborated.  Is  it  possible  that 
this  is  connected  in  a  way  with  the  rarefied 
atmosphere  of  Lenox,  in  which  distant  objects 
appear  so  sharply  defined? 

"The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables"  might  be 
symbolized  by  two  paintings,  in  the  first  of 
which  Hepzibah  Pyncheon  stands  as  the  central 
figure,  her  face  turned  upward  in  a  silent  prayer 
for  justice,  her  brother  Clifford,  with  his  head 
bowed  helplessly,  at  one  side,  and  the  judge, 
with  his  chronic  smile  of  satisfaction,  behind 
Clifford;  on  the  other  side  the  keen-eyed  Hoi- 
grave  would  appear,  sympathetically  watching 
the  progress  of  events,  with  Phoebe  Pyncheon 
at  his  left  hand.  Old  Uncle  Banner  and  little 
Ned  Higgins  might  fill  in  the  background. 
In  the  second  picture  the  stricken  judge  would 
be  found  in  a  large  old-fashioned  arm-chair, 
with  Clifford  and  Hepzibah  flying  through  a 
doorway  to  the  right,  while  Phoebe  and  Hol- 

234 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

grave,  the  one  happy  and  the  other  startled, 
enter  on  the  left. 

Hepzibah,  not  Phoebe,  is  the  true  heroine  of 
the  romance, — or  at  least  its  central  figure. 
Nowhere  do  we  look  more  deeply  into  Haw 
thorne's  nature  than  through  this  sympathetic 
portrait  of  the  cross-looking  old  maid,  whose 
only  inheritance  is  the  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables,  in  which  she  has  lived  many  years, 
poor,  solitary,  friendless,  with  a  disgrace  upon 
her  family,  only  sustained  by  the  hope  that 
she  may  yet  be  a  help  and  comfort  to  her 
unfortunate  brother.  The  jury  before  whom 
Clifford  was  tried  believed  him  to  be  guilty,  but 
his  sister  never  would  believe  it.  She  lives  for 
him  and  suffers  with  him.  Hawthorne  does  not 
mitigate  the  unpleasantness  of  her  appearance, 
but  he  instructs  us  that  there  is  a  divine  spark 
glowing  within.  Very  pitiful  is  her  attempt  to 
support  the  enfeebled  brother  by  keeping  a 
candy  store;  but  noble  and  heroic  is  her  resist 
ance  to  the  designs  of  her  tyrannical  cousin. 
It  is  her,  intrepidity  that  effects  the  crisis  of 
the  drama. 

BotH  Hepzibah  and  Clifford  Pyncheon  are 
examples  of  what  fine  portraiture  Hawthorne 
could  accomplish  in  exceptional  or  abnormal 
personalities,  without  ever  descending  to  cari 
cature.  Judge  Pyncheon  .has  been  criticised  as 
being  too  much  of  a  stage  villain,  but  the  same 
might  be  alleged  of  Shakespeare's  (or  Fletcher's) 
Richard  III.  What  is  he,  in  effect,  but  a  Richard 
III.  reduced  to  private  life?  Moreover,  his  habit 

235 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

of  smiling  is  an  individual  trait  which  gives 
him  a  certain  distinction  of  his  own.  Usually, 

Faces  ever  blandly  smiling 

Are  victims  of  their  own  beguiling. 

But  Judge  Pyncheon  is  a  candidate  for  the 
governorship,  and  among  the  more  mercenary 
class  of  politicians  smiling  often  becomes  a 
habit  for  the  sake  of  popularity.  Hawthorne 
might  have  added  something  to  the  judge's 
personate  by  representing  him  with  a  droll  wit, 
like  James  Fiske,  Jr.,  or  some  others  that  we 
have  known,  and  he  might  have  exposed  more 
of  his  internal  reflections;  but  he  serves  as  a 
fair  example  of  the  hard,  grasping,  hypocritical 
type  of  Yankee.  We  see  only  one  side  of  him, 
but  there  are  men,  and  women  too,  who  only 
have  one  side  to  their  characters. 

It  has  been  affirmed  that  Hawthorne  made 
use  of  the  Honorable  Mr.  Upham,  the  excellent 
historian  of  Salem  witchcraft,  as  a  model  for 
Judge  Pyncheon,  and  that  this  was  done  in 
revenge  for  Mr.  Upham 's  inimical  influence  in 
regard  to.  the  Salem  surveyorship.  It  is  im 
possible,  at  this  date,  to  disentangle  the  snarl 
of  Hawthorne's  political  relations  in  regard  to 
that  office,  but  Upham  had  been  a  member  of 
Congress  and  was  perhaps  as  influential  a  Whig 
as  any  in  the  city.  If  Hawthorne  was  removed 
through  his  instrumentality,  he  performed  our 
author  a  service,  which  neither  of  them  could 
have  realized  at  the  time.  Hawthorne,  however, 
had  a  strong  precedent  in  his  favor  in  this 

236 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

instance;  namely,  Shakespeare's  caricature  of 
Sir  Thomas  Luce,  as  Justice  Shallow  in  "  The 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  ' ' ;  but  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  think  better  or  worse 
of  Mr.  Upham  on  this  account. 

Phcebe  Pyncheon  is  an  ideal  character,  the 
type  of  youthful  NewT  England  womanhood, 
and  the  most  charming  of  all  Hawthorne's 
feminine  creations.  Protected  by  the  shield  of 
her  own  innocence,  she  leaves  her  country 
home  from  the  same  undefined  impulse  by 
which  birds  fly  north  in  spring,  and  accomplishes 
her  destiny  where  she  might  have  least  ex 
pected  to  meet  with  it.  She  fills  the  whole 
book  with  her  sunny  brightness,  and  like  many 
a  young  woman  at  her  age  she  seems  more 
like  a  spirit  than  a  character.  Her  maidenly 
digmty"1repels'"analysis,  and  Hawthorne  himself 
extends  a  wise  deference  to  his  own  creation. 

The  future  of  a  great  nation  depends  more 
on  its  young  women  than  upon  its  laws  or  its 
statesmen. 

In  regard  to  Holgrave,  we  have  already  said 
somewhat;  but  he  is  so  lifelike  that  it  seems 
as  if  he  must  have  been  studied  from  one  of  the 
younger  members  of  the  Brook  Farm  asso 
ciation;  perhaps  the  one  of  whom  Emerson 
tells  us,*  that  he  spent  his  leisure  hours  in  play 
ing  with  the  children,  but  had  "so  subtle  a 
mind"  that  he  was  always  consulted  whenever 
important  business  was  on  foot.  He  is  visible 
to  our  mental  perspective  as  a  rather  slender 

*  Lecture  on  Brook  Farm. 
237 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

man,  above  medium  height,  with  keen  hazel 
eyes,  a  long  nose,  and  long  legs,  and  quick  and 
lively  in  his  movements.  Phoebe  has  a  more 
symmetrical  figure,  bluish-gray  eyes,  a  com 
plexion  slightly  browned  from  going  without 
her  hat,  luxuriant  chestnut-brown  hair,  always 
quiet  and  graceful.  We  have  no  doubt  that 
Holgrave  made  a  worthy  husband  for  her,  and 
that  he  occasionally  took  a  hand  in  public 
affairs. 

Judge  Pyncheon's  duplicity  is  revealed  to 
Holgrave  by  the  medium  of  a  daguerreotype. 
Men  or  women  who  are  actors  in  real  life  should 
avoid  being  photographed,  for  the  camera  is 
pretty  sure  to  penetrate  their  hypocrisy,  and 
expose  them  to  the  world  as  they  actually  are. 
Every  photograph  album  is  to  a  certain  extent 
a  rogues'  gallery,  in  which  our  faults,  peculiari 
ties,  and  perhaps  vices  are  ruthlessly  portrayed 
for  the  student  of  human  nature.  If  a  merchant 
were  to  have  all  his  customers  photographed, 
he  would  soon  learn  to  distinguish  those  who 
were  not  much  to  be  trusted. 

Notice  also  Hawthorne's  eye  for  color.  When 
Clifford,  Hepzibah,  and  Phoebe  are  about  to 
leave  the  seven-gabled  house  for  the  last  time, 
"A  plain,  but  handsome  dark-green  barouche" 
is  drawn  to  the  door.  This  is  evidently  his 
idea  of  a  fine  equipage ;  and  it  happens  that  the 
background  of  Raphael's  "Pope  Julius"  is  of 
this  same  half-invisible  green,  and  harmonizes 
so  well  with  the  Pope's  figure  that  few  realize 
its  coloring. 

238 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

The  plot  of  this  picturesque  story  is  the  most 
ingenious  of  Hawthorne's  life,  but  sufficiently 
probable  throughout  to  answer  the  purpose  of 
a  romance,  and  it  is  the  only  one  of  Hawthorne's 
larger  works  which  ends  happily.  It  was  brought 
out  by  Ticknor  &  Company  at  Easter  1850, — 
less  than  ten  weeks  after  it  was  finished ;  but  we 
think  of  the  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  as 
standing  empty,  deserted  and  forlorn. 

In  December  Emerson  had  written  to  Haw 
thorne  concerning  a  new  magazine  in  which  he 
and  Lowell  were  interested,  and  if  Hawthorne 
would  only  give  it  his  support  its  success  could 
not  be  questioned.  What  Hawthorne  replied 
to  this  invitation  has  never  been  discovered, 
but  he  had  seen  too  many  such  periodicals  go 
to  wreck  to  feel  much  confidence  in  this  enter 
prise.*  It  is  of  more  importance  now  that 
Emerson  should  have  addressed  him  as  "My 
dear  Hawthorne,"  for  such  cordial  friendliness 
was  rare  in  "the  poet  of  the  pines."  Mrs. 
Alcott  once  remarked  that  Emerson  never 
spoke  to  her  husband  otherwise  than  as  "Mr. 
Alcott, "  and  it  is  far  from  likely  that  he  ever 
spoke  to  Hawthorne  differently  from  this.  The 
conventionalities  of  letter-writing  run  back  to  a 
period  when  gentlemen  addressed  one  another 
— and  perhaps  felt  so  too — in  a  more  friendly 
manner  than  they  do  at  present. 

Works  of  fiction  and  sentimental  poetry 
stir  up  a  class  of  readers  which  no  other  literature 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  381. 
239 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

seems  to  reach,  and  Hawthorne  was  soon  in 
undated  with  letters  from  unknown,  and  per 
haps  unknowable,  admirers;  but  the  most 
remarkable  came  from  a  man  named  Pynchon, 
who  asserted  that  his  grandfather  had  been  a 
judge  in  Salem,  and  who  was  highly  indignant 
at  the  use  which  Hawthorne  had  made  of  his 
name.*  This  shows  how  difficult  it  is  for  a 
writer  of  fiction  or  a  biographer  to  escape  giving 
offence.  The  lightning  is  sure  to  strike  some 
where. 

"THE  SNOW  IMAGE" 

The  question  now  was,  what  next?  As  it 
happened,  the  next  important  event  in  the 
Hawthorne  family  was  the  advent  of  their 
younger  daughter,  born  like  Agassiz,  "in  the 
lovely  month  of  May,"  and  amid  scenery  as 
beautiful  as  the  Pays  de  Vaud.  Her  father 
named  her  Rose,  in  defiance  of  Hillard's  ob 
jection  to  idyllic  nomenclature;  and  as  a  child 
she  seemed  much  like  the  spirit  of  that  almost 
fabulous  flower,  the  wild  orange-rose.  Ten 
years  later,  she  was  the  most  graceful  girl  in  the 
Concord  dancing-school,  and  resembled  her 
elder  sister  so  closely  that  they  could  not  have 
been  mistaken  for  anything  but  sisters.  As 
she  grew  older  she  came  more  and  more  to 
resemble  her  mother. 

It  was  said  that  Hawthorne's  "Wonder 
Book"  originated  in  his  telling  free  versions  of 

*  Conway,  135. 
240 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

the  Greek  myths  to  his  children  on  winter 
evenings;  and  also  that  Horace  Mann's  boys, 
who  were  almost  exactly  of  the  same  age  as 
Una  and  Julian,  participated  in  the  entertain 
ment.  This  may  have  happened  the  following 
winter  at  Newton,  but  could  hardly  have  taken 
place  at  Lenox;  and  otherwise  it  is  quite  im 
possible  to  identify  all  the  children  with  botanical 
names  in  Hawthorne's  introduction.  Julian 
once  remarked,  at  school,  that  he  believed 
that  he  was  the  original  of  Squash-blossom, 
and  that  is  as  near  as  we  can  get  to  it.  Some  of 
them  may  have  been  as  imaginary  as  the  ingenious 
Mr.  Eustace  Bright,  and  might  serve  as  well  to 
represent  one  group  of  children  as  another. 

The  book  was  written  very  rapidly,  at  an 
average  of  ten  pages  a  day,  and  it  has  Haw 
thorne's  grace  and  purity  of  style,  but  it  does  not 
belong  to  the  legitimate  series  of  his  works. 
It  is  an  excellent  book  for  the  young,  for  they 
learn  from  it  much  that  every  one  ought  to 
know;  but  to  mature  minds  the  original  fables, 
even  in  a  translation,  are  more  satisfactory 
than  these  Anglo-Saxon  versions  in  the  "  Wonder 
Book." 

The  collection  of  tales  which  passes  by  the 
name  of  "The  Snow  Image"  is  a  much  more 
serious  work.  "The  Great  Stone  Face"  and 
one  or  two  others  in  the  collection  were  pre 
pared  at  Salem  for  the  same  volume  as  "The 
Scarlet  Letter,"  but  judiciously  excluded  by 
Mr.  Fields.  " The  Snow  Image"  itself,  however, 
is  plainly  derived  from  Hawthorne's  own  ex- 
16  241 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

perience  during  the  winter  at  Lenox.  The 
common-sensible  farmer  and  his  poetic  wife 
could  not  be  mistaken  for  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Haw 
thorne,  but  the  two  sportive  children  are  easily 
identified  as  Una  and  Julian.  They  are  not 
only  of  the  same  age,  but  the  "slight  graceful 
girl"  and  " chubby  red-cheeked  boy"  describes 
them  exactly.  The  idea  has  been  derived  from 
the  fable  of  the  Greek  sculptor  Pygmalion  whose 
statue  came  to  life.  That  seems  far  enough 
off  to  be  pleasantly  credible,  but  to  have  such 
a  transubstantiation  take  place  in  the  front 
yard  of  a  white-fenced  American  residence,  is 
rather  startling.  Yet  Hawthorne,  with  the 
help  of  the  twilight,  carries  us  through  on  the 
broad  wings  of  his  imagination,  even  to  the 
melting  of  the  little  snow-sister  before  an  air 
tight  stove  in  a  close  New  England  parlor. 
The  moral  that  Hawthorne  draws  from  this 
fable  might  be  summed  up  in  the  old  adage, 
"  What  is  one  man's  meat  is  another  man's 
poison"  ;  but  it  has  a  deeper  significance, 
which  the  author  does  not  seem  to  have  per 
ceived.  The  key-note  of  the  fable  is  the  same 
as  that  in  Goethe's  celebrated  ballad,  "The  Erl 
King";  namely,  that  those  things  which 
children  imagine,  are  as  real  to  them  as  the 
facts  of  the  external  world.  Nor  do  we  altogether 
escape  from  this  so  long  as  we  live. 

The  origin  of  "The  Great  Stone  Face"  is 
readily  traced  to  the  profile  face  in  the  Fran- 
coma  Mountains, — which  has  not  only  a  strangely 
human  appearance,  but  a  grave  dignified  ex- 

242 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

pression,  and,  as  a  natural  phenomenon,  ranks 
next  to  Niagara  Falls.  The  value  of  the  fable, 
however,  has  perhaps  been  over-estimated.  It 
is  an  old  story  in  a  modern  garb,  the  saying  so 
often  repeated  in  the  Book  of  Isaiah:  "The 
last  shall  be  first,  and  the  first  shall  be  last. " 
The  man  Ernest,  who  is  much  in  his  ways  like 
Hawthorne  himself,  spends  his  leisure  in  con 
templating  the  Great  Stone  Face,  and  thus 
acquires  a  similar  expression  in  his  own.  The 
wealthy  merchant,  the  famous  general,  the 
great  party  leader,  and  the  popular  poet,  all 
come  upon  the  scene;  but  not  one  of  them  ap 
pears  to  advantage  before  the  tranquil  counte 
nance  of  the  Great  Stone  Face.  Finally,  Ernest 
in  his  old  age  carries  off  the  laurel;  and  in  this 
Hawthorne  hits  the  mark,  for  it  is  only  through 
earnestness  that  man  becomes  immortal.  Yet, 
one  would  suppose  that  constantly  gazing  at  a 
face  of  stone,  would  give  one  a  rather  stony 
expression;  as  sculptors  are  liable  to  become 
statuesque  from  their  occupation. 

Another  Dantean  allegory,  and  fully  equal  in 
power  to  any  Canto  in  Dante's  "  Inferno, "  is 
the  story  of  "Ethan  Brandt,"  or  "The  Un 
pardonable  Sin."  We  have  a  clew  to  its  origin 
in  the  statement  that  it  was  part  of  an  un 
finished  romance;  presumably  commenced  at 
Concord,  but  afterward  discarded,  owing  to 
the  author's  dissatisfaction  with  his  work — an 
illustration  of  Hawthorne's  severe  criticism  of 
his  own  writing.  The  scene  is  laid  at  a  lime 
kiln  in  a  dark  and  gloomy  wood,  where  a  lime- 

243 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

burner,  far  from  human  habitations,  is  watching 
his  fires  at  night.  To  him  Ethan  Brandt  ap 
pears,  a  strange  personage,  long  .  known  for 
his  quest  after  the  unpardonable  sin,  and  the 
solitude  echoes  back  the  gloominess  of  their 
conversation.  Finally,  the  lime -burner  fixes  his 
fires  for  the  night,  rolls  himself  up  in  his  blanket, 
and  goes  to  sleep.  When  he  awakes  in  the 
morning,  the  stranger  is  gone,  but,  on  ascending 
the  kiln  to  look  at  his  caldron,  he  finds  there 
the  skeleton  of  a  man,  and  between  its  ribs  a 
heart  of  white  marble.  This  is  the  unpardon 
able  sin,  for  which  there  is  neither  dispensation 
nor  repentance.  Ethan  Brandt  has  committed 
suicide  because  life  had  become  intolerable  on 
such  conditions. 

The  summer  of  1851  in  Lenox  was  by  no 
means  brilliant.  It  had  not  yet  become  the 
tip  end  of  fashion,  and  Hawthorne's  chief  en 
tertainment  seems  to  have  been  the  congrat 
ulatory  letters  he  received  from  distinguished 
people.  Mrs.  Frances  Kemble  wrote  to  him 
from  England,  announcing  the  success  of  his 
book  there,  and  offering  him  the  use  of  her 
cottage,  a  more  palatial  affair  than  Mrs.  Tappan's, 
for  the  ensuing  winter.  Mrs.  Hawthorne,  how 
ever,  felt  the  distance  between  herself  and  her 
relatives,  and  perhaps  they  both  felt  it.  Mrs. 
Hawthorne's  sister  Mary,  now  Mrs.  Horace 
Mann,  was  living  in  West  Newton,  and  the 
last  of  June  Mrs.  Hawthorne  went  to  her  for  a 
long  summer  visit,  taking  her  two  daughters 
with  her  and  leaving  Julian  in  charge  of  his 

244 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

father,  with  whom  it  may  be  affirmed  he  was 
sufficiently  safe.  It  rarely  happens  that  a 
father  and  son  are  so  much  together  as  these 
two  were,  and  they  must  have  become  very 
strongly  attached. 

For  older  company  he  had  Hermann  Mel 
ville,  and  G.  P.  R.  James,  whose  society  he 
may  have  found  as  interesting  as  that  of  more 
distinguished  writers,  and  also  Mr.  Tappan, 
whom  Hawthorne  had  learned  to  respect  for 
his  good  sense  and  conciliatory  disposition — a 
true  peace-maker  among  men  and  women. 
Burill  Curtis,  the  amateur  brother  of  George  W. 
Curtis,  came  to  sketch  the  lake  from  Hawthorne's 
porch,  and  Doctor  Holmes  turned  up  once  or 
twice.  On  July  24  Hawthorne  wrote  to  his 
friend  Pike  at  Salem :  * 

"By  the  way,  if  I  continue  to  prosper  as  heretofore  in 
the  literary  line,  I  shall  soon  be  in  a  condition  to  buy  a 
place;  and  if  you  should  hear  of  one,  say  worth  from 
$1500  to  $2000,  I  wish  you  would  keep  your  eye  on  it  for 
me.  I  should  wish  it  to  be  on  the  seacoast,  or  at  all  events 
with  easy  access  to  the  sea." 

The  evident  meaning  of  this  is  that  the  Haw- 
thornes  had  no  desire  to  spend  a  second  winter 
in  the  Berkshire  hills.  The  world  was  large, 
but  he  knew  not  where  to  rest  his  head.  Mrs. 
Hawthorne  solved  the  problem  on  her  return  to 
Lenox,  and  it  was  decided  to  remove  to  West 
Newton  when  cold  weather  came.  Thither 
they  went  November  21  in  a  driving  storm  of 

*  Mrs.  Lathrop,  151. 
245 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

snow  and  sleet, —  a  parting  salute  from  old 
Berkshire, — and  reached  Horace  Mann's  house 
the  same  evening. 

Nobody  knows  where  the  Hawthornes  lived 
in  Newton.  The  oldest  survivors  of  both 
families  were  only  five  years  of  age  at  that  time. 
Mrs.  Hawthorne's  father  also  resided  in  Newton 
that  winter,  and  it  is  more  than  likely  that  they 
made  their  residence  with  him.  Julian  Haw 
thorne  has  a  distinct  recollection  of  the  long 
freight-trains  with  their  clouds  of  black  smoke 
blowing  across  his  father's  ground  during  the  win 
ter  ;  so  they  could  not  have  lived  very  far  from 
the  Worcester  railroad.  Horace  Mann's  house  is 
still  standing,  opposite  a  school-house  on  the 
road  from  the  station,  where  a  by-way  meets 
it  at  an  acute  angle.  The  freight- trains  and 
their  anthracite  smoke  must  have  had  a  dis 
turbing  influence  on  Hawthorne's  sensibility. 

The  long-extended  town  of  Newton,  which 
is  now  a  populous  city,  has  much  the  best  situa 
tion  of  any  of  the  Boston  suburbs — on  a  moder 
ately  high  range  of  hills,  skirted  by  the  Charles 
River,  both  healthful  and  picturesque.  It  is 
not  as  hot  in  summer  nor  so  chilly  at  other 
seasons  as  Concord,  and  enjoys  the  advantage 
of  a  closer  proximity  to  the  city.  Its  society 
is,  and  always  has  been,  more  liberal  and  pro 
gressive  than  Salem  society  in  Hawthorne's 
time.  Its  citizens,  mainly  professional  and 
mercantile  men,  are  active,  intelligent,  and 
sensible,  without  being  too  fastidious.  It  was 
a  healthful  change  for  Hawthorne,  and  we  are 

246 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

not  surprised  to  find  that  his  literary  work  was 
affected  by  it.  Mrs.  L.  Maria  Child  lived  there 
at  the  time,  and  so  did  Celia  Thaxter,  although 
not  yet  known  to  fame.  The  sound,  penetrating 
intelligence  of  Horace  Mann  may  have  also  had 
its  salutary  effect. 

"THE  BLITHEDALE  ROMANCE" 

Hawthorne's  "  Wonder  Book"  and  "The 
Snow  Image"  were  expressed  to  Ticknor  & 
Company  before  leaving  Lenox,  and  "The 
Blithedale  Romance ' '  may  also  have  been  com 
menced  before  that  change  of  base.  We  only 
know,  from  his  diary,  that  it  was  finished  on  the 
last  day  of  April,  1852,  and  that  he  received 
the  first  proof-sheets  of  it  two  weeks  later — 
which  shows  what  expedition  publishers  can 
make,  when  they  feel  inclined. 

The  name  itself  is  somewhat  satirical,  for 
Hawthorne  did  not  find  the  life  at  Brook  Farm 
very  blithesome,  and  in  the  story,  with  the  ex 
ception  of  the  sylvan  masquerade,  there  is  much 
more  rue  than  heart 's-ease,  as  commonly  hap 
pens  in  his  stories.  The  tale  ends  tragically,  and. 
without  the  gleam  of  distant  happiness  which 
lights  up  the  last  scenes  of  "The  Scarlet  Let 
ter."  It  commences  with  a  severe  April  snow 
storm,  an  unfavorable  omen ;  the  same  in  which 
Hawthorne  set  out  to  join  the  West  Roxbury 
community. 

And  yet  the  name  is  not  without  a  serious 
meaning — a  stern,  sad  moral  significance.  The 

247 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

earth  is  not  naturally  beautiful,  for  rank  Nature 
ever  runs  to  an  excess.  It  is  only  beautiful 
when  man  controls  and  remodels  it;  but  what 
man  makes  physically,  he  can  unmake  spiritually. 
We  pass  by  a  handsome  estate,  a  grand  arcade 
of  elms  over  its  avenue,  spacious  lawns,  an 
elegant  mansion,  a  luxurious  flower-garden; 
but  we  are  informed  that  happiness  does  not 
dwell  there,  that  its  owner  is  a  misanthropic 
person,  whose  nature  has  been  perverted  by 
the  selfishness  of  luxury;  that  there  are  no 
pleasant  parties  on  the  lawn,  no  happy  wooing 
in  that  garden,  no  marriage  festivals  in  those 
halls;  and  those  possessions,  which  might  have 
proved  a  blessing  to  generations  yet  unborn, 
are  no  better  than  a  curse  and  a  whited  sepulchre. 
How  many  such  instances  could  be  named. 

It  may  have  occurred  to  Hawthorne,  that,  if 
George  Ripley,  instead  of  following  after  a 
will-o'-the-wisp  notion,  which  could  only  lead 
him  into  a  bog,  had  used  the  means  at  his  disposal 
to  cultivate  Brook  Farm  in  a  rational  manner, 
and  had  made  it  a  hospitable  rendezvous  for 
intellectual  and  progressive  people, — an  oasis 
of  culture  amid  the  wide  waste  of  commercial 
ism, — the  place  might  well  have  been  called 
Blithedale,  and  Mr.  Ripley  would  have  inaugu 
rated  a  movement  as  rare  as  it  was  beneficial. 
It  was  only  at  a  city  like  Boston,  whose  suburbs 
were  pleasant  and  easily  accessible,  that  such  a 
plan  could  be  carried  out;  and  it  was  only  a 
man  of  Mr.  Ripley 's  scholarship  and  intellectual 
acumen  who  could  have  drawn  together  the 

248 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

requisite  elements  for  it.  It  looks  as  if  he  missed 
an  opportunity. 

We  should  avoid,  however,  confounding 
George  Ripley  with  Hawthorne's  Hollings- 
worth.  It  is  quite  possible  that  Hawthorne 
made  use  of  certain  traits  in  Ripley 's  character 
for  this  purpose,  and  also  that  he  may  have 
had  some  slight  collision  with  him,  such  as  he 
represents  in  "The  Blithedale  Romance;"  but 
Ripley  was  an  essentially  veracious  nature,  who, 
as  already  remarked,  carried  out  his  experiment 
to  its  logical  conclusion.  Hoi  lings  worth,  on 
the  contrary,  proposes  to  pervert  the  trust 
confided  to  him,  in  order  to  establish  at  Blithe- 
dale  an  institution  for  the  reformation  of  crim 
inals,  by  which  proceeding  he  would,  after  a 
fashion,  become  a  criminal  himself.  At  the 
same  time,  he  plays  fast  and  loose  with  the 
affections  of  Zenobia  and  Priscilla,  who  are 
both  in  love  with  him,  designing  to  marry  the 
one  who  would  make  the  most  favorable  match 
for  his  purpose.  It  is  through  the  junction  of 
these  two  streams  of  evil  that  the  catastrophe 
is  brought  about. 

Priscilla  is  evidently  taken  from  the  little 
seamstress  whom  Hawthorne  mentions  in  his 
diary  for  October  9,  1841,  and  if  she  ever  dis 
covered  this,  she  could  hardly  have  been  dis 
pleased,  for  she  is  one  of  his  most  lovable 
creations;  not  so  much  of  an  ideal  as  Phcebe 
Pyncheon,  for  she  is  older  and  has  already 
seen  hard  fortune.  Her  quiet,  almost  sub 
missive  ways  at  first  excite  pity  rather  than 

249 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

admiration,  but  at  length  we  discover  that  there 
is  a  spirit  within  her,  which  shines  through  its 
earthly  envelope,  like  the  twinkling  of  a  star. 

Zenobia  has  a  larger  nature  and  a  more  gifted 
mind  than  Priscilla,  but  also  a  more  mixed 
character.  Her  name  suggests  a  queenly  presence 
and  she  is  fully  conscious  of  this.  She  does  not 
acquire  an  equal  influence  over  the  other  sex, 
for  she  is  evidently  in  love  with  herself.  She 
is  described  as  handsome  and  attractive,  but 
no  sooner  had  "  Blithedale  "  been  published  than 
people  said,  "  Margaret  Fuller  "  *  —  although 
Margaret  Fuller  was  rather  plain  looking,  and 
never  joined  the  Brook  Farm  association. 

If  this  surmise  be  correct,  it  leads  to  a  curious 
consideration.  After  painting  a  portrait  of 
Zenobia  in  Chapter  VI  of  "  Blithedale, "  quite 
worthy  of  Rubens  or  Titian,  he  remarks, 
through  the  incognito  of  Miles  Coverdale,  in  the 
first  part  of  Chapter  VII,  that  Priscilla  reminds 
him  of  Margaret  Fuller,  and  says  this  to  Priscilla 
herself.  Now  it  proves  in  the  sequel  that  Pris 
cilla  and  Zenobia  are  half-sisters,  but  it  would 
be  as  difficult  to  imagine  this  from  anything 
that  is  said  in  the  story  about  them,  as  it  is 
to  understand  how  the  shy,  undemonstrative 
Priscilla  could  have  reminded  Coverdale  of  the 
brilliant  and  aggressive  leader  of  the  Tran- 
scendentalists. 

*  The  name  of  Zenobia  is  not  very  remotely  significant 
of  Margaret  Fuller.  Palmyra  was  the  centre  of  Greek 
philosophy  in  Zenobia's  time,  and  she  also  resembled 
Margaret  in  her  tragical  fate. 

250 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

The  introduction  of  Margaret  Fuller's  name 
in  that  place  conies  abruptly  on  the  reader, 
and  momentarily  dispels  the  illusion  of  the  tale. 
Was  Hawthorne  conscious  of  the  undercurrent 
of  relationship,  which  he  had  already  formulated 
in  his  mind,  between  Priscilla  and  Zenobia;  or 
what  is  more  likely,  did  he  make  the  comparison 
in  order  to  lead  his  readers  away  from  any 
conceptions  they  might  have  formed  in  regard 
to  the  original  of  his  heroine?  If  the  latter 
supposition  be  true,  he  certainly  was  not  very 
successful,  for  in  either  case  it  is  evident  that 
Margaret  Fuller  was  prominent  in  his  thoughts 
at  the  time  he  wrote  those  two  chapters. 

Hawthorne's  idea  of  her,  however,  should 
not  be  accepted  as  a  finality.  What  Emerson 
and  other  friends  have  said  concerning  her 
should  also  be  considered  in  order  to  obtain  a 
just  impression  of  a  woman  who  combined 
more  varied  qualities  than  perhaps  any  other 
person  of  that  time.  Hawthorne  says  of  Zenobia, 
that  she  was  naturally  a  stump  oratoress,— 
rather  an  awkward  expression  for  him — and  that 
"her  mind  was  full  of  weeds. "  Margaret  Fuller 
was  a  natural  orator,  and  her  mind  was  full  of 
many  subjects  in  which  Hawthorne  could  take 
little  interest.  She  was  a  revolutionary  character, 
a  sort  of  female  Garibaldi,  who  attacked  old 
Puritan  traditions  with  a  two-edged  sword;  she 
won  victories  for  liberalism,  but  left  confusion 
behind  her.  Like  all  such  characters,  she  made 
friends  and  enemies  wherever  she  went.  She 
sometimes  gave  offence  by  hasty  impulsive 

251 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

utterances,  but  more  frequently  by  keenly  pene 
trating  arguments  for  the  various  causes  which 
she  espoused.  Only  a  woman  could  deliver 
such  telling  shots. 

Lowell,  who  was  fond  of  an  argument  himself, 
did  not  like  her  better  than  Hawthorne  did. 
There  may  be  some  truth  in  what  he  says  in 
"The  Fable  for  Critics,"  that  the  expression  of 
her  face  seemed  to  suggest  a  life-long  familiarity 
with  the  "  infinite  soul " ;  but  Margaret  Fuller  was 
sound  at  heart,  and  when  she  talked  on  those 
subjects  which  interested  her,  no  one  could  be 
more  self-forgetful  or  thoroughly  in  earnest. 
At  times,  she  seemed  like  an  inspired  prophetess, 
and  if  she  had  lived  two  thousand  years  earlier, 
she  might  have  been  remembered  as  a  sibyl.* 

"The  Blithedale  Romance"  is  written  with  a 
freer  pen  and  less  carefully  than  "  The  House  of 
the  Seven  Gables,"  and  is  so  much  the  better; 
for  the  author's  state  of  mind  in  which  he  is 
writing  will  always  affect  the  reader  more  or 
less,  and  if  the  former  feels  under  a  slight  con 
straint  the  latter  will  also.  A  writer  cannot  be 
too  exact  in  ascertaining  the  truth, — Macaulay 
to  the  contrary, — but  he  can  trouble  himself 
too  much  as  to  the  expression  of  it.  At  the 
same  time,  "The  Blithedale  Romance"  is  the 
least  poetic  of  Hawthorne's  more  serious  works 
(which  is  the  same  as  saying  that  it  is  more 
like  a  novel),  for  the  reason  that  Hawthorne 
in  this  instance  was  closer  to  his  subject.  It  is 

*  See  Appendix  B. 
252 


^  .- 

NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

also  more  of  a  personal  reminiscence,  and  less 
an  effort  of  the  imagination.  He  has  included 
in  it  a  number  of  descriptive  passages  taken 
from  his  Brook  Farm  diary;  most  notably  the 
account  of  that  sylvan  masquerade,  in  which 
Coverdale  finds  his  former  associates  engaged 
on  his  return  to  Blithedale  in  the  autumn. 
Perhaps  this  is  the  reason  why  the  book  has  so 
pleasant  a  flavor — a  mellow  after-thought  of 
old  associations. 

An  air  of  mystery  adds  an  enchantment  to  a 
work  of  art,  whether  in  poetry,  painting,  or 
sculpture, — perhaps  also  in  music;  but  there 
is  a  difference  in  kind  between  mystery  and 
uncertainty.  We  do  not  like  to  be  left  half  in 
the  dark,  in  regard  to  things  which  we  think  we 
ought  to  know.  There  is  a  break  in  Hawthorne's 
chain  of  evidence  against  Hollingsworth  and 
Zenobia,  which  might  possibly  have  been  filled 
to  advantage.  He  would  certainly  have  been 
non-suited,  if  his  case  had  been  carried  into 
court.  We  are  permitted  to  suppose  that 
Zenobia,  in  order  to  clear  her  path  of  a  successful 
rival,  assists  the  mountebank,  Westervelt,  to 
entrap  Priscilla,  over  whom  he  possesses  a  kind 
of  hypnotic  power,  and  to  carry  her  off  for  the 
benefit  of  his  mountebank  exhibitions;  but  it 
remains  a  supposition  and  nothing  more.  We 
cannot  but  feel  rejoiced,  when  Hollingsworth 
steps  onto  the  platform  and  releases  Priscilla 
from  the  psychological  net-work  in  which  she  is 
involved,  and  from  which  she  has  not  sufficient 
will-power  to  free  herself.  He  certainly  deserves 

253 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

her  hand  and  fortune;  but,  as  to  his  condem 
natory  charges  against  Zenobia,  which  led 
directly  to  her  suicide, — what  could  they  have 
been?  Was  there  nothing  more  than  the  trick 
she  had  attempted  upon  Priscilla?  And  if  he 
accused  her  of  that  only,  why  should  he  suffer 
perpetual  remorse  on  account  of  her  death? 
Surely  there  was  need  of  further  explanation 
here,  for  the  catastrophe  and  its  consequences 
are  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  apparent  cause. 

His  account  of  the  recovery  of  Zenobia 's 
body  is  a  close  transcript  of  the  search  for  that 
unfortunate  school-mistress,  who  drowned  her 
self  in  Concord  River;  and  it  is  possible  that, 
if  Hawthorne  had  not  been  present  on  that 
occasion,  the  plot  might  have  terminated  in 
some  other  manner. 

The  story  closes  without  a  ray  of  hope  for 
Hollingsworth ;  but  the  reader  can  perceive 
one  in  the  generous  devotion  of  his  single- 
minded  wife,  even  if  Hawthorne  did  not. 


254 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  LIVERPOOL  CONSULATE:  1852-1854 

WHY  Hawthorne  returned  to  Concord  in 
1852  is  more  of  a  mystery  than  the  suicide  of 
Zenobia.  Horace  Mann  also  left  Newton,  to  be 
President  of  Antioch  College  (and  to  die  there 
in  the  cause  of  feminine  education),  in  the 
autumn  of  that  year;  but  this  could  hardly 
have  been  expected  six  months  earlier.  Haw 
thorne  was  not  very  favorably  situated  at 
Newton,  being  rather  too  near  the  railroad  ; 
but  there  was  plenty  of  land  on  the  top  of  the 
hill,  where  he  might  have  built  himself  a  house, 
and  in  the  course  of  twelve  years  his  property 
would  have  quadrupled  in  value.  A  poet  will 
not  be  less  of  a  poet,  but  more  so,  for  under 
standing  the  practical  affairs  of  life.  Or  he 
might  have  removed  to  Cambridge,  where 
Longfellow,  always  foremost  in  kind  offices, 
would  have  been  like  a  guardian  angel  to  him, 
and  where  he  could  have  made  friends  like 
Felton  and  Agassiz,  who  would  have  been 
much  more  in  harmony  with  his  political  views. 
Ellery  Channing  was  the  only  friend  he  appears 
to  have  retained  in  Concord,  and  it  was  not 
altogether  a  favorable  place  to  bring  up  his 
children ;  but  the  natural  topography  of  Concord 
is  unusually  attractive,  and  it  may  be  suspected 
that  he  was  drawn  thither  more  from  the  love 

255 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

of  its  pine  solitudes  and  shimmering  waters, 
than  from  any  other  motive. 

The  house  he  purchased  was  nearly  a  mile 
from  the  centre  of  the  town,  and  has  ever  since 
been  known  by  the  name  of  the  Wayside.  After 
Hawthorne's  return  from  Europe  in  1860,  he 
remodelled  it  somewhat,  so  that  it  has  a  more 
dignified  aspect  than  when  he  first  took  pos 
session  of  it.  Alcott,  who  occupied  it  for  some 
years  previously,  had  adorned  it  with  that 
species  of  rustic  architecture  in  which  he  was 
so  skilful.  The  house  was  half  surrounded  by 
a  group  of  locust  trees,  much  in  fashion  seventy 
years  ago,  and  had  been  set  so  close  against 
the  hill-side,  that  a  thicket  of  stunted  pines  and 
other  wild  growth  rose  above  the  roof  like  a 
crest.  Bronson  Alcott  was  his  next-door 
neighbor, — almost  too  strong  a  contrast  to  him, 
— and  Emerson's  house  was  half  a  mile  away; 
so  that  these  three  families  formed  a  group  by 
themselves  in  that  portion  of  Concord. 

Hawthorne  wrote  a  letter  to  his  sister  Eliza 
beth,  describing  his  new  acquisition,  and  ex 
pressing  satisfaction  in  it.  It  was  the  first  house 
that  he  had  ever  owned;  and  it  is  no  small 
comfort  to  a  man  to  live  under  his  own  roof, 
even  though  it  be  a  humble  one.  At  this  time, 
however,  he  did  not  remain  at  the  Wayside  but 
a  single  year.  After  that,  the  house  stood 
empty  until  the  untimely  death  of  Horace 
Mann,  August  2,  1859,  when  Mrs.  Mann 
came  to  Concord  with  her  three  boys,  and 

256 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

occupied  it  until  Hawthorne's  return  from 
Europe. 

It  may  as  well  be  noticed  here,  that,  during 
the  eight  years  which  Hawthorne  spent  alto 
gether  in  Concord,  he  accomplished  little 
literary  work,  and  none  of  any  real  importance. 
It  is  impossible  to  account  for  this,  except  upon 
those  pyschological  conditions  which  sometimes 
affect  delicately  balanced  minds.  Whether  the 
trouble  was  in  the  social  atmosphere  of  the  place, 
or  in  its  climatic  conditions,  perhaps  Hawthorne 
himself  could  not  have  decided;  but  there  must 
have  been  a  reason  for  it  of  some  description. 
Julian  Hawthorne  states  that  his  father  had  a 
plan  at  this  time  of  writing  another  romance, 
of  a  more  cheerful  tone  than  "The  Blithedale 
Romance,"  but  the  full  current  of  his  poetic 
activity  was  suddenly  brought  to  a  stand 
still  by  an  event  that  nobody  would  have 
dreamed  of. 

Hawthorne  had  hardly  established  himself 
in  his  new  abode,  when  Franklin  Pierce  was 
nominated  for  the  presidency  by  the  Democratic 
party.  The  whole  country  was  astonished, 
for  no  such  nomination  had  ever  been  made 
before,  and  it  is  probable  that  Pierce  himself 
shared  largely  in  this.  The  New  Hampshire 
delegation  had  presented  his  name  to  the  con 
vention,  in  order  to  procure  him  distinction  in 
his  own  State,  but  without  expectation  that  he 
would  become  a  serious  candidate.  Like  the 
nomination  of  Hayes  in  1876,  it  resulted  from 
the  jealousy  of  the  great  party  leaders, — always 
17  257 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

an  unfortunate  position  for  a  public  man  to  be 
placed  in.  Theodore  Parker  said,  "Any  one  is 
now  in  danger  of  becoming  President." 

Hawthorne  evidently  felt  this,  for  he  wrote  to 
Bridge,  "I  do  not  consider  Pierce  the  brightest 
man  in  the  country,  for  there  are  twenty  more 
so."  It  would  have  been  a  mild  statement  if 
he  had  said  two  hundred.  Pierce  wanted  him, 
of  course,  to  write  a  campaign  biography,  and 
communicated  with  him  to  that  effect;  but 
Hawthorne  disliked  meddling  in  such  matters, 
and  at  first  declined  to  do  it,  although  it  was 
expected  to  be  highly  remunerative.  Pierce, 
however,  insisted,  for  Hawthorne's  reputation 
was  now  much  beyond  his  own,  and  he  felt  that 
a  biography  by  so  distinguished  a  writer  would 
confer  upon  him  great  dignity  in  the  eyes  of 
the  world;  and  as  Hawthorne  felt  already  much 
indebted  to  Pierce,  he  finally  consented,— 
although  a  cheap  spread-eagle  affair  would 
have  served  the  purpose  of  his  party  quite  as  well. 
The  book  had  to  be  written  in  haste,  and  just 
at  the  time  when  Hawthorne  wished  to  take  a 
little  leisure.  There  were  so  few  salient  points 
in  Pierce 's  life,  that  it  was  almost  like  making  a 
biography  out  of  nothing,  and  as  for  describing 
him  as  a  hero,  that  was  quite  impossible.  It 
was  fortunate  that  he  knew  so  much  of  Pierce 's 
early  life,  and  also  that  Pierce  had  kept  a  diary 
during  the  Mexican  War,  which  formed  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  biography. 

The  book  is  worth  reading,  although  written 
in  this  prosaic  manner.  Hawthorne  states  in  the 

258 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

preface,  frankly  and  manfully,  that  he  objected 
to  writing  it,  and  this  ought  to  be  an  excuse 
sufficient  for  his  doing  so — if  excuse  be  needed. 
He  does  not  attempt  to  represent  his  friend  as 
a  great  statesman,  but  rather  as  a  patriotic 
country  gentleman,  who  is  interested  in  public 
affairs,  and  who  rises  from  one  honorable  position 
to  another  through  a  well-deserved  popularity. 
This  would  seem  to  have  been  the  truth;  and 
yet  there  was  a  decided  inconsistency  in  Frank 
lin  Pierce 's  life,  which  Hawthorne  represents 
plainly  enough,  although  he  makes  no  comment 
thereon. 

Franklin  Pierce 's  father  was  captain  of  a 
militia  company  in  1798,  when  war  was  declared 
against  the  French  Directory,  for  seizing  and 
confiscating  American  merchant  ships,  con 
trary  to  the  law  of  nations.  There  could  not 
have  been  a  more  just  occasion  for  war,  but 
Captain  Pierce  resigned  his  commission,  because 
he  considered  it  wrong  to  fight  against  a  republic ; 
and  Hawthorne  approves  of  him  for  this. 
Franklin  Pierce,  however,  resigned  his  seat  in 
the  Senate  in  1842,  on  account  of  the  interests 
of  his  family,  alleging  that  "he  would  never 
enter  public  life  again,  unless  the  needs  of  his 
country  imperatively  demanded  it,"  yet  four 
years  later  he  organized  a  regiment  for  the 
invasion  of  Mexico, — not  only  for  making  war 
upon  a  republic,  but  an  unjust  and  indefensible 
war.  General  Grant's  opinion  ought  to  be 
conclusive  on  this  latter  point,  for  he  belonged 
to  the  same  political  party  as  Pierce  and  Haw- 

259 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

thorne.  Certainly,  Pierce's  services  were  not 
required  for  the  defence  of  his  native  land. 

To  do  Hawthorne  justice,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  in  his  heart  he  disapproved  of  this; 
for  in  one  of  his  sketches  written  at  the  Old 
Manse,  he  speaks  censoriously  of  "  those  ad 
venturous  spirits  who  leave  their  homes  to 
emigrate  to  Texas."  He  evidently  foresaw 
that  trouble  would  arise  in  that  direction,  and 
perhaps  Ellery  Channing  assisted  him  in  pene 
trating  the  true  inwardness  of  the  movement. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  Franklin 
Pierce's  youth,  he  was  exceptionally  interested 
in  military  manoeuvres,  and  this  may  have  been 
one  of  the  inducements  which  led  him  into  the 
Mexican  War;  but  young  men  who  are  fond  of 
holiday  epaulets  do  not,  for  obvious  reasons, 
make  the  best  fighters.  Pierce's  military  career 
was  not  a  distinguished  one;  for,  whether  he 
was  thrown  from  his  horse  in  his  first  engage 
ment,  or,  as  the  Whigs  alleged,  fell  from  it  as 
soon  as  he  came  under  fire,  it  is  certain  that  he 
did  not  cover  himself  with  glory,  as  the  phrase 
was  at  that  time.  But  we  can  believe  Haw 
thorne,  when  he  tells  us  that  Pierce  took  good 
charge  of  the  troops  under  his  command,  and 
that  he  was  kind  and  considerate  to  sick  and 
wounded  soldiers.  That  was  in  accordance 
with  his  natural  character. 

It  was  impossible  at  that  time  to  avoid  the 
slavery  question  in  dealing  with  political  subjects, 
and  what  Hawthorne  said  on  this  point,  in  the  life 
of  General  Pierce,  attracted  more  attention  than 

260 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

the  book  itself.  Like  Webster  he  considered 
slavery  an  evil,  but  he  believed  it  to  be  one  of 
those  evils  which  the  human  race  outgrows, 
by  progress  in  civilization, — like  the  human 
sacrifices  of  the  Gauls  perhaps, — and  he  greatly 
deprecated  the  anti-slavery  agitation,  which 
only  served  to  inflame  men's  minds  and  make 
them  unreasonable. 

There  were  many  sensible  persons  in  the 
Northern  States  at  that  time,  like  Hawthorne 
and  Hillard,  who  sincerely  believed  in  this 
doctrine,  but  they  do  not  seem  to  have  been 
aware  that  there  was  a  pro-slavery  agitation  at 
the  South  which  antedated  Garrison's  Liberator 
and  which  wras  much  more  aggressive  and 
vehement  than  the  anti-slavery  movement, 
because  there  were  large  pecuniary  interests 
connected  with  it.  The  desperate  grasping  of 
the  slave-holders  for  new  territory,  first  in  the 
Northwest  and  then  in  the  Southwest,  was  not 
because  they  were  in  any  need  of  land,  but 
because  new  slave  States  increased  their  political 
power.  Horatio  Bridge  says,  relatively  to  this 
subject: 

"No  Northern  man  had  better  means  for 
knowing  the  dangers  impending,  previous  to 
the  outbreak  of  the  war,  than  had  General 
Pierce.  Intimately  associated — as  he  was — 
with  the  strong  men  of  the  South,  in  his  Cabinet 
and  in  Congress,  he  saw  that  the  Southerners 
were  determined,  at  all  hazards,  to  defend 
their  peculiar  institution  of  slavery,  which  was 
imperilled  by  the  abolitionists.  " 

261 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

If  Franklin  Pierce  was  desirous  of  preserving 
the  Union,  why  did  he  give  Jefferson  Davis  a 
place  in  his  Cabinet,  and  take  him  for  his  chief 
adviser  ?  Davis  was  already  a  pronounced 
secessionist,  and  had  been  defeated  in  his  own 
State  on  that  issue.  In  subserviency  to  Southern 
interests,  no  other  Northern  man  ever  went  so 
far  as  Franklin  Pierce,  nor  did  Garrison  himself 
accomplish  so  much  toward  the  dissolution  of 
the  Union.  He  was  an  instance  in  real  life  of 
Goldsmith's  "good-natured  man,"  and  the  same 
qualities  which  assisted  him  to  the  position  of 
President  prevented  his  administration  from 
being  a  success.  Presidents  ought  to  be  made  of 
firmer  and  sterner  material. 

Hawthorne  had  barely  finished  with  the  proofs 
of  this  volume,  when  he  received  the  saddest, 
most  harrowing  news  that  ever  came  to  him. 
After  her  mother's  death,  in  1849,  Louisa  Haw 
thorne  had  gone  to  live  with  her  aunt,  Mrs. 
John  Dike;  and  in  July,  1852,  Mr.  Dike  went 
with  her  on  an  excursion  to  Saratoga  and  New 
York  City.  On  the  morning  of  July  27,  they 
left  Albany  on  the  steamboat  "  Henry  Clay," 
which,  as  is  well  known,  never  reached  its  destina 
tion.  When  nearing  Yonkers,  a  fire  broke  out 
near  the  engines,  where  the  wood- work  was 
saturated  with  oil,  and  instantly  the  centre  of  the 
vessel  was  in  a  bright  blaze.  Mr.  Dike  happened 
to  be  on  the  forward  deck  at  the  moment,  but 
Louisa  Hawthorne  was  in  the  ladies'  cabin,  and 
it  was  impossible  to  reach  her.  The  captain  of 
the  Henry  Clay  immediately  ran  the  vessel  on 

262 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

shore,  so  that  Mr.  Dike  and  those  who  were  with 
him  escaped  to  land,  but  Louisa  and  more  than 
seventy  others,  who  threw  themselves  into  the 
water,  were  drowned.  It  would  seem  to  have 
been  impossible  to  save  her. 

The  death  of  Hawthorne's  mother  may  be  said 
to  have  come  in  the  course  of  Nature,  and  his 
mind  was  prepared  for  it;  but  Louisa  had  been 
the  playmate  of  his  childhood,  and  her  death 
seemed  as  unnecessary  as  it  was  sharp  and 
sudden.  It  happened  almost  on  the  third 
anniversary  of  his  mother's  death,  and  these 
were  the  only  two  occasions  in  Hawthorne's 
life,  when  the  Dark  Angel  hovered  about  his 
door. 

Rebecca  Manning  says: 

"Louisa  Hawthorne  was  a  most  delightful, 
lovable,  interesting  woman — not  at  all '  common 
place,  '  as  has  been  stated.  Her  death  was  a 
great  sorrow  to  all  her  friends.  Her  name 
was  Maria  Louisa,  and  she  was  often  called 
Maria  by  her  mother  and  sister  and  aunts." 

Depressed  and  unnerved,  in  the  most  trying 
season  of  the  year,  Hawthorne  went  in  the 
latter  part  of  August  to  visit  Franklin  Pierce  at 
Concord,  New  Hampshire;  but  there  a  severe 
torrid  wave  came  on,  so  that  Pierce  advised  him 
to  go  at  once  to  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  promising 
to  follow  in  a  few  days,  if  his  numerous  engage 
ments  would  permit  him. 

The  Isles  of  Shoals  have  the  finest  summer 
climate  on  the  Atlantic  Ocean;  an  atmosphere 
at  once  quieting  and  strengthening,  and  always 

263 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

at  its  best  when  it  is  hottest  on  the  main-land. 
Hawthorne  found  a  pair  of  friends  ready-rnade 
there,  and  prepared  to  receive  him, — Levi 
Thaxter,  afterwards  widely  known  as  the 
apostle  of  Browning  in  America,  and  his  wife, 
Celia,  a  poetess  in  the  bud,  only  sixteen,  but 
very  bright,  original,  and  pleasant.  They 
admired  Hawthorne  above  all  living  men,  and 
his  sudden  advent  on  their  barren  island  seemed, 
as  Thaxter  afterward  expressed  it,  like  a  super 
natural  presence.  They  became  good  companions 
in  the  next  two  weeks;  climbing  the  rocks, 
rowing  from  one  island  to  another, — bald  pieces 
of  rock,  like  the  summits  of  mountains  rising 
above  the  surface  of  the  sea, — visiting  the 
light-house,  the  monument  to  Captain  John 
Smith,  Betty  Moody 's  Cave,  the  graves  of  the 
Spanish  sailors,  the  trap  dikes  of  ancient  lava, 
and  much  else.  Every  day  Hawthorne  wrote 
a  minute  account  in  his  diary  of  his  various 
proceedings  there,  including  the  observation  of 
a  live  shark,  which  came  into  the  cove  by  the 
hotel,  a  rare  spectacle  on  that  coast.  General 
Pierce  did  not  make  his  appearance,  however, 
and  on  September  15,  Hawthorne  returned  to 
his  own  home. 

The  election  of  Pierce  to  the  presidency  was 
as  remarkable  as  his  nomination.  In  1848, 
General  Taylor,  the  victor  of  a  single  battle, 
but  a  man  of  little  education,  was  nominated 
for  the  presidency  over  the  heads  of  the  finest 
orators  and  ablest  statesmen  in  America,  and  was 
enthusiastically  elected.  General  Scott,  Franklin 

264 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Pierce 's  opponent,  defeated  the  Mexicans  in 
four  decisive  battles,  captured  the  capital  of  the 
country,  and  conducted  one  of  the  most  skilful 
military  expeditions  of  the  past  century.  He 
was  a  man  of  rare  administrative  ability,  and 
there  is  no  substantial  argument  against  his 
character.  We  have  Grant's  testimony  that  it 
was  pleasant  to  serve  under  him.  Yet  he  was 
overwhelmingly  defeated  at  the  polls  by  a 
militia  general  without  distinction,  military  or 
civil. 

Hawthorne  was  naturally  delighted  at  the 
result  of  the  election;  unfortunate  as  it  after 
wards  proved  for  his  country.  He  derived  a 
threefold  satisfaction  from  it,  in  the  success  of 
his  friend,  in  the  defeat  of  the  Whigs,  and  in  the 
happy  prospects  which  it  opened  for  himself. 
He  could  now  return  to  the  Salem  Custom 
House  in  triumph, — as  the  wisest  man  might 
be  tempted  to  do, — but  he  looked  forward  to 
something  that  would  be  more  advantageous 
to  his  family.  He  had  already  written  on 
October  18  to  Horatio  Bridge: 

"Before  undertaking  it  [the  biography]  I  made  an  in 
ward  resolution,  that  I  should  accept  no  office  from  him; 
but,  to  say  the  truth,  I  doubt  whether  it  would  not  be 
rather  folly  than  heroism  to  adhere  to  this  purpose,  in  case 
he  should  offer  me  anything  particularly  good.  We  shall 
see.  A  foreign  mission  I  could  not  afford  to  take.  The 
consulship  at  Liverpool,  I  might."  * 

We  may  conclude  from  this,  that  Pierce  had 
already  intimated  the  Liverpool  consulate,  which 

*  Bridge,    130. 
265 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

at  that  time  was  supposed  to  be  worth  twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars  a  year  in  fees.  It  was  an 
excellent  plan  for  the  President  of  the  United 
States  to  have  such  a  gift  at  his  disposal,  to 
reward  some  individual  like  Hawthorne,  to 
whom  the  whole  nation  was  indebted  to  an 
extent  that  could  never  be  repaid;  but  it  is  a 
question  whether  it  would  not  have  been  as  well, 
in  this  particular  case,  for  Hawthorne  to  have 
remained  in  his  own  country.  If  he  could  have 
written  five  or  six  romances  more,  this  would 
have  secured  him  a  good  competency,  and 
would  have  assured  a  sufficient  income  for  his 
family  after  his  death.  As  it  happened,  the 
Liverpool  consulate  did  not  prove  so  profitable 
as  was  anticipated. 

With  such  "great  expectations"  before  him, 
Hawthorne  could  do  no  serious  work  that  winter, 
so  he  occupied  himself  leisurely  enough,  with 
writing  a  sequel  to  his  "  Wonder  Book,"  which  he 
called  "Tangle wood  Tales,"  apparently  after  the 
thicket  which  surmounted  the  hill  above  his 
residence.  This  was  finished  early  in  March,  and 
given  to  Ticknor  &  Company  to  publish  when 
they  saw  fit.  As  it  is  a  book  intended  for  children, 
the  consideration  of  it  need  not  detain  us. 

Early  in  April,  1853,  Hawthorne  was  appointed 
and  confirmed  to  the  Liverpool  consulate,  and 
on  the  1 4th  he  went  to  Washington,  as  he  tells 
us,  for  the  first  time,  to  thank  the  President  in 
person.  Otherwise  he  has  divulged  nothing 
concerning  this  journey,  except  that  he  was 
introduced  to  a  larger  number  of  persons  than  he 

266 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

could  remember  the  names  or  faces  of,  and 
received  ten  times  as  many  invitations  as  he 
could  accept.  If  Charles  V.  honored  himself 
with  posterity  by  picking  up  the  paint-brush 
which  Titian  had  dropped  on  the  floor,  President 
Pierce  might  have  done  himself  equal  credit 
by  making  Hawthorne  his  guest  at  the  White 
House;  but  if  he  did  not  go  so  far  as  this,  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  he  treated  Hawthorne 
handsomely.  There  were  giants  at  Washington 
in  those  days.  Webster  and  Clay  were  gone, 
but  Seward  was  the  Charles  Fox  and  Sumner  the 
Edmund  Burke  of  America;  Chase  and  Marcy 
were  not  much  less  in  intellectual  stature. 
Hawthorne  must  have  met  them,  but  we  hear 
nothing  of  them  from  him. 

Hawthorne  delayed  his  departure  for  England, 
until  the  most  favorable  season  arrived,  for  his 
fragile  wife  and  infant  children  to  cross  the 
"rolling  forties."  At  length,  on  July  6,  two  days 
after  his  forty-ninth  birthday,  he  sailed  from 
Boston  in  the  "  Niagara,"  and  with  placida  onda 
prospero  il  vento,  in  about  twelve  days  they  all 
arrived  safely  at  their  destination. 

The  great  stone  docks  of  Liverpool,  extending 
along  its  whole  water-front,  give  one  a  strong 
impression  of  the  power  and  solidity  of  England. 
Otherwise  the  city  is  almost  devoid  of  interest, 
and  travellers  customarily  pass  through  it,  to 
take  the  next  train  for  Oxford  or  London, 
without  further  observation,  unless  it  be  to  give 
a  look  at  the  conventional  statue  of  Prince 
Albert  on  an  Arab  horse.  Liverpool  is  not  so 

267 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

foggy  a  place  as  London,  but  it  has  a  damper 
and  less  pleasant  climate,  without  those  varied 
attractions  and  substantial  enjoyments  which 
make  London  one  of  the  most  pleasant  resi 
dences  and  most  interesting  of  cities. 

London  fog  is  composed  of  soft-coal  smoke, 
which,  ascending  from  innumerable  chimneys, 
is  filtered  in  the  upper  skies,  and  then,  mixed 
with  vapor,  is  cast  back  upon  the  city  by  every 
change  of  wind.  It  is  not  unpleasant  to  the 
taste,  and  seems  to  be  rather  healthful  than 
otherwise;  but  all  the  vapors  which  sail  down 
the  Gulf  Stream,  and  which  are  not  condensed 
on  the  Irish  coast  in  the  form  of  rain,  collect  about 
the  mouth  of  the  Mersey,  so  that  the  adjacent 
country  is  the  best  watered  portion  of  all  Eng 
land,  Cornwall  possibly  excepted.  There  is 
plenty  of  wealth  in  Liverpool,  and  all  kinds  of 
private  entertainments,  but  in  no  other  city 
of  its  size  are  there  so  few  public  entertainments, 
and  the  only  interesting  occupation  that  a 
stranger  might  find  there,  would  be  to  watch  the 
strange  and  curious  characters  in  the  lower 
classes,  faces  and  figures  that  cannot  be  cari 
catured,  emerging  from  cellar- ways  or  dis 
appearing  through  side-doors.  Go  into  an  ale 
house  in  the  evening  and,  beside  the  pretty 
barmaid,  who  deserves  consideration  as  much 
for  her  good  behavior  as  for  her  looks,  you  will 
see  plainly  enough  where  Dickens  obtained  his 
dramatis  personce  for  "  Barnaby  Rudge"  and 
"  The  Old  Curiosity  Shop."  Either  in  Liverpool 
or  in  London  you  can  see  more  grotesque  comedy 

268 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

characters  in  a  day,  than  you  could  meet  with 
in  a  year  in  America.  These  poor  creatures  are 
pressed  down,  and  squeezed  out  into  what  they 
are,  under  the  superincumbent  weight  of  an 
enormous  leisure  class. 

Such  was  the  environment  in  which  Haw 
thorne  was  obliged  to  spend  the  ensuing  four 
years.  He  soon,  however,  discovered  a  means  to 
escape  from  the  monotonous  and  labyrinthine 
streets  of  the  city,  by  renting  an  imitation  castle 
at  Rock  Ferry, — a  very  pretty  place,  much  like 
Dobbs  Ferry,  on  the  Hudson,  although  the  river 
is  not  so  fine, — where  his  wife  and  children 
enjoyed  fresh  air,  green  grass,  and  all  the  sun 
shine  attainable,  and  whence  he  could  reach  the 
consulate  every  morning  by  the  Mersey  boat. 
We  find  them  located  there  before  September  i. 

Of  the  consulate  itself,  Hawthorne  has  given 
a  minute  pictorial  description  in  "Our  Old 
Home,"  from  which  the  following  extract  is 
especially  pertinent  to  our  present  inquiry: 

"The  Consulate  of  the  United  States  in  my 
day,  wras  located  in  Washington  Buildings  (a 
shabby  and  smoke-stained  edifice  of  four  stories 
high,  thus  illustriously  named  in  honor  of  our 
national  establishment),  at  the  lower  corner 
of  Brunswick  Street,  contiguous  to  the  Goree 
Arcade,  and  in  the  neighborhood  of  some  of 
the  oldest  docks.  This  was  by  no  means  a 
polite  or  elegant  portion  of  England's  great 
commercial  city,  nor  were  the  apartments  of 
the  American  official  so  splendid  as  to  indicate 
the  assumption  of  much  consular  pomp  on  his 

269 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

part.  A  narrow  and  ill-lighted  staircase  gave 
access  to  an  equally  narrow  and  ill-lighted  pas 
sage-way  on  the  first  floor,  at  the  extremity  of 
which,  surmounting  a  door  frame,  appeared 
an  exceedingly  stiff  pictorial  representation  of 
the  Goose  and  Gridiron,  according  to  the 
English  idea  of  those  ever-to-be-honored 
symbols.  The  staircase  and  passage-way  were 
often  thronged  of  a  morning,  with  a  set  of 
beggarly  and  piratical-looking  scoundrels  (I 
do  no  wrong  to  our  countrymen  in  styling  them 
so,  for  not  one  in  twenty  was  a  genuine  American) , 
purporting  to  belong  to  our  mercantile  marine, 
and  chiefly  composed  of  Liverpool  Blackball- 
ers,  and  the  scum  of  every  maritime  nation 
on  earth;  such  being  the  seamen  by  whose 
assistance  we  then  disputed  the  navigation  of 
the  world  with  England.  These  specimens  of  a 
most  unfortunate  class  of  people  were  ship 
wrecked  crews  in  quest  of  bed,  board,  and  cloth 
ing,  invalids  asking  permits  for  the  hospital, 
bruised  and  bloody  wretches  complaining  of 
ill-treatment  by  their  officers,  drunkards,  des 
peradoes,  vagabonds,  and  cheats,  perplexingly 
intermingled  with  an  uncertain  proportion  of 
reasonably  honest  men.  All  of  them  (save 
here  and  there  a  poor  devil  of  a  kidnapped 
landsman  in  his  shore-going  rags)  wore  red  flan 
nel  shirts,  in  which  they  had  sweltered  or  shiv 
ered  throughout  the  voyage,  and  all  required 
consular  assistance  in  one  form  or  another." 

The  position  of  an  American  consul  in  a  large 
foreign  seaport,  especially  at  Liverpool,  is  any- 

270 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

thing  but  a  sinecure,  and  in  fact  requires  a  con 
tinual  exercise  of  judgment  much  beyond  the 
average  duties  of  a  foreign  minister.  The 
difficulty  also  of  being  continually  obliged  to 
distinguish  between  true  and  false  applications 
for  charity,  especially  when  the  false  are  greatly 
in  excess  of  the  true,  and  among  a  class  of 
persons  notably  given  to  mendacious  tricks,  is 
one  of  the  most  unpleasant  conditions  in  which 
a  tender-hearted  man  can  find  himself.  As 
curious  studies  in  low  life,  the  rascality  of 
these  nautical  mendicants  may  often  have  been 
interesting,  and  even  amusing,  to  Hawthorne, 
but  as  a  steady  pull  they  must  have  worn  hard 
on  his  nerves,  even  though  his  experienced 
clerk  served  as  a  breakwater  to  a  considerable 
portion.  It  has  already  been  noticed  that 
Hawthorne  was  a  conscientious  office-holder, 
and  he  never  trusted  to  others  any  duties 
which  he  was  able  to  attend  to  in  person.  More 
over,  although  he  was  a  man  of  reserved  manners, 
there  was  an  exceptionally  tender,  sympathetic 
heart  behind  this  impenetrable  exterior,  and  it 
may  be  suspected  that  he  relieved  many  instances 
of  actual  distress,  which  could  not  be  brought 
within  the  government  regulations.  He  may 
have  suffered  like  the  ghost  in  Dickens 's 
"Haunted  Man,"  on  account  of  those  whom  he 
could  not  assist.  It  is  certain  that  he  aged  more, 
in  appearance  at  least,  during  these  four  years, 
than  at  any  similar  period  of  his  life. 

It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that,  after  a  visit  to 
the  English  lakes,  the  following  summer,  Haw- 

271 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

thorne  wrote  to  his  friend,  Henry  Bright,  from 
Liverpool : 

"I  have  come  back  only  for  a  day  or  two  to  this  black 
and  miserable  hole.  I  do  not  mean  to  apply  these  two  ad 
jectives  to  my  consulate,  but  to  the  whole  of  Liverpool." 

Yet  it  should  be  recollected  that  there  were 
nearly  a  million  of  persons  in  Liverpool,  who 
were  obliged  to  spend  their  lives  there,  for  good 
and  evil  fortune;  and,  as  Emerson  says,  we  can 
never  think  too  lightly  of  our  own  difficulties. 

Neither  did  Hawthorne  find  the  news  from 
America  particularly  interesting.  On  March 
30,  1854,  he  wrote  to  Bridge: 

"I  like  my  office  well  enough,  but  my  official  duties 
and  obligations  are  irksome  to  me  beyond  expression. 
Nevertheless,  the  emoluments  will  be  a  sufficient  induce 
ment  to  keep  me  here,  though  they  are  not  above  a 
quarter  part  what  some  people  suppose  them. 

"It  sickens  me  to  look  back  to  America.  I  am  sick  to 
death  of  the  continual  fuss  and  tumult  and  excitement 
and  bad  blood  which  we  keep  up  about  political  topics. 
If  it  were  not  for  my  children,  I  should  probably  never 
return,  but — after  quitting  office — should  go  to  Italy,  and 
live  and  die  there.  If  Mrs.  Bridge  and  you  would  go  too, 
we  might  form  a  little  colony  amongst  ourselves,  and  see 
our  children  grow  up  together.  But  it  will  never  do  to 
deprive  them  of  their  native  land,  which  I  hope  will  be  a 
more  comfortable  and  happy  residence  in  their  day  than 
it  has  been  in  ours."  * 

The  last  sentence  in  this  ought  to  be  printed  in 
italics,  for  it  is  the  essence  of  patriotism.  The 
"fuss  and  tumult"  in  America  were  due,  for  the 


*  J.  Hawthorne,  ii.  65. 
272 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

time  being,  to  the  apple  of  discord  which  Douglas 
had  cast  into  the  Senate,  by  his  Kansas-Ne 
braska  bill.  Hawthorne  was  too  far  away  to 
distinguish  the  full  force  and  insidious  character 
of  that  measure,  but  if  he  had  been  in  Concord, 
we  believe  he  would  have  recognized  (as  so 
many  did  who  never  had  before)  the  imminent 
danger  to  the  Union,  from  the  repeated  con 
cessions  to  the  slave  power.  After  he  had 
become  disenthralled  from  his  allegiance  to 
party,  we  find  him  in  his  letters  to  Bridge, 
taking  broad  views  on  political  subjects. 

An  event  was  soon  to  happen,  well  calculated 
to  disenthrall  him.  The  Congress  of  1854,  after 
passing  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  resolved,  in 
order  to  prove  its  democratic  spirit,  to  economize 
in  the  representation  of  our  government  to 
foreign  powers.  On  April  14,  the  good-hearted, 
theoretical  O 'Sullivan  arrived  in  Liverpool, 
on  his  way  to  be  minister  to  Portugal,  and 
warned  Hawthorne  that  there  was  a  bill  before 
Congress  to  reduce  the  consulate  there  to  a 
salaried  position.  This  was  a  terrible  damper 
on  Hawthorne's  great  expectations,  and  on 
April  17  he  wrote  again  to  Bridge,  protesting 
against  the  change :  * 

"I  trust,  in  Heaven's  mercy,  that  no  change  will  be  made 
as  regards  the  emoluments  of  the  Liverpool  consulate — 
unless  indeed  a  salary  is  to  be  given  in  addition  to  the  fees, 
in  which  case  I  should  receive  it  very  thankfully.  This, 
however,  is  not  to  be  expected ;  and  if  Liverpool  is  touched 

*  Bridge,  135,  136. 
18  273 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

at  all,  it  will  be  to  limit  its  emoluments  by  a  fixed  salary — 
which  will  render  the  office  not  worth  any  man's  holding. 
It  is  impossible  (especially  for  a  man  with  a  family  and 
keeping  any  kind  of  an  establishment)  not  to  spend  a  vast 
deal  of  money  here.  The  office,  unfortunately,  is  regarded 
as  one  of  great  dignity,  and  puts  the  holder  on  a  level 
with  the  highest  society,  and  compels  him  to  associate  on 
equal  terms  with  men  who  spend  more  than  my  whole 
income  on  the  mere  entertainments  and  other  trimmings 
and  embroidery  of  their  lives.  Then  I  feel  bound  to  exer 
cise  some  hospitality  towards  my  own  countrymen.  I  keep 
out  of  society  as  much  as  I  decently  can,  and  really  practice 
as  stern  an  economy  as  I  ever  did  in  my  life;  but,  nev 
ertheless,  I  have  spent  many  thousands  of  dollars  in  the 
few  months  of  my  residence  here,  and  cannot  reasonably 
hope  to  spend  less  than  six  thousand  per  annum,  even 
after  all  the  expenditure  of  setting  up  an  establishment  is 
defrayed." 

In  addition  to  this,  he  states  that  his  pred 
ecessor  in  office,  John  J.  Crittenden,  never 
received  above  fifteen  thousand  dollars  in  fees, 
of  which  he  saved  less  than  half. 

We  can  trust  this  to  be  the  plain  truth  in 
regard  to  the  Liverpool  consulate,  and  if  twenty- 
five  thousand  a  year  was  ever  obtained  from  it, 
there  must  have  been  some  kind  of  deviltry 
in  the  business.  Congress  proved  inexorable, — 
as  it  might  not  have  been,  had  Hawthorne 
possessed  the  influence  of  a  prominent  politician 
like  Crittenden.  It  was  a  direct  affront  to  the 
President  from  his  own  party,  and  Pierce  did  not 
dare  to  veto  the  bill. 

What  O' Sullivan  said  to  Hawthorne  on  other 
subjects  may  be  readily  inferred  from  Haw 
thorne's  next  letter  to  Bridge,  in  which  he  begs 

274 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

him  to  remain  in  Washington  for  Pierce 's  sake, 
and  says: 

"I  feel  a  sorrowful  sympathy  for  the  poor  fellow  (for 
God's  sake  don't  show  him  this),  and  hate  to  have  him 
left  without  one  true  friend,  or  one  man,  who  will  speak  a 
single  honest  word  to  him." 

It  is  not  very  clear  how  Horatio  Bridge  could 
counteract  the  influence  of  Jefferson  Davis  and 
Caleb  Gushing,  but  this  shows  that  Franklin 
Pierce 's  weakness  as  an  administrator  was 
already  painfully  apparent  to  his  friends,  and 
that  even  Hawthorne  could  no  longer  disguise 
it  to  himself. 


275 


CHAPTER  XIII 
HAWTHORNE  IN  ENGLAND:  1854-1858 

HAWTHORNE'S  life  in  England  was  too  gen 
erally  monotonous  to  afford  many  salient  points 
to  his  biographer.  It  was  monotonous  in  his 
official  duties,  in  his  pleasure-trips,  and  in  his 
social  experiences.  He  found  one  good  friend 
in  Liverpool,  Mr.  Henry  Bright,  to  whom  he  had 
already  been  introduced  in  America,  and  he 
soon  made  another  in  Mr.  Francis  Bennoch, 
who  lived  near  the  same  city.  They  were  both 
excellent  men,  and  belonged  to  that  fine  class 
of  Englishmen  who  possess  a  comfortable  income, 
but  live  moderately,  and  prefer  cultivating 
their  minds  and  the  society  of  their  friends,  to 
clubs,  yachting,  horse-racing,  and  other  forms 
of  external  show.  They  were  not  distinguished, 
and  were  too  sensible  to  desire  distinction. 
Henry  Bright  may  have  been  the  more  highly 
favored  in  Hawthorne's  esteem,  but  they  both 
possessed  that  tact  and  delicacy  of  feeling  which 
is  rare  among  Englishmen,  and  by  accepting 
Hawthorne  simply  as  a  man  like  themselves, 
instead  of  as  a  celebrity,  they  won  that  place  in 
his  confidence  from  which  so  many  had  been 
excluded. 

Otherwise,  Hawthorne  contracted  no  friend 
ships  among  distinguished  Englishmen  of  letters, 
like  that  between  Emerson  and  Carlyle;  and 

276 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

from  first  to  last  he  saw  little  of  them.  He  had 
no  sooner  landed  than  he  was  greeted  with  a 
number  of  epistles  from  sentimental  ladies, 
or  authors  of  a  single  publication,  who  claimed  a 
spiritual  kinship  with  him,  because  of  their 
admiration  for  his  writings.  One  of  them  even 
addressed  him  as  "My  dear  brother."  These  he 
filed  away  with  a  mental  reservation  to  give 
the  writers  as  wide  a  circuit  as  he  possibly  could. 
He  attended  a  respectable  number  of  dinner 
parties  in  both  Liverpool  and  London,  at  which 
he  remained  for  the  most  part  a  silent  and 
unobtrusive  guest.  He  was  not  favored  with  an 
invitation  to  Holland  House,  although  he  met 
Lady  Holland  on  one  occasion,  and  has  left  a 
description  of  her,  not  more  flattering  than 
others  that  have  been  preserved  for  us.  He  also 
met  Macaulay  and  the  Brownings  at  Lord 
Houghton's;  but  for  once  Macaulay  would  not 
talk.  Mrs.  Browning  evidently  pleased  Haw 
thorne  very  much.*  The  great  lights  of  English 
literature  besides  these, — Tennyson,  Carlyle, 
Ruskin,  Thackeray,  Dickens, — he  was  never 
introduced  to,  although  he  saw  Tennyson  in  a 
picture-gallery  at  Manchester,  and  has  left  a 
description  of  him,  such  as  might  endure  to  the 
end  of  time.  Neither  did  he  make  the  acquaint 
ance  of  those  three  luminaries,  Froude,  Marian 
Evans,  and  Max  Miiller,  who  rose  above  the 
horizon,  previous  to  his  return  to  America. 
That  he  was  not  presented  at  Court  was  a  matter 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  ii.  129. 

277 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

of  course.     There  was  nothing  which  he  could 
have  cared  for  less. 

After  his  return  he  published  a  volume 
of  English  sketches,  which  he  entitled  "Our 
Old  Home,"  but  he  seems  to  have  felt  actually 
less  at  home  in  England  than  in  any  other 
country  that  he  visited.  In  that  book,  and  also 
in  his  diary,  the  even  tenor  of  his  discourse  is 
interrupted  here  and  there  by  fits  of  irritability 
which  disclose  themselves  in  the  use  of  epithets 
such  as  one  would  hardly  expect  from  the  pen 
of  Hawthorne.  If  we  apply  to  him  the  well- 
known  proverb  with  respect  to  the  Russians, 
we  can  imagine  that  under  similar  conditions 
an  inherited  sailor-like  tendency  in  him  came 
to  the  surface.  We  only  remember  one  such 
instance  in  his  American  Note-book,  that  in 
which  he  speaks  of  Thoreau's  having  a  face  "as 
homely  as  sin."*  Hawthorne  did  not  carry  with 
him  to  Europe  that  narrow  provincialism, 
which  asserts  itself  in  either  condemning  or 
ridiculing  everything  that  differs  essentially 
from  American  ways  and  methods.  On  the 
contrary,  when  he  compares  the  old  country 
with  the  new, — for  instance,  the  English  scenery 
with  that  of  New  England, — Hawthorne  is 
usually  as  fair,  discriminating,  and  dispassionate 
as  any  one  could  wish,  and  perhaps  more  so  than 
some  would  desire.  His  judgment  cannot 
be  questioned  in  preferring  the  American  elm, 

*  The  general  effect  of  Thoreau's  face  was  by  no  means 
unpleasant. 

278 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

with  its  wine-glass  shape,  to  the  rotund  European 
species ;  but  he  admires  the  English  lake  country 
above  anything  that  he  has  seen  like  it  in  his 
own  land.  "Centuries  of  cultivation  have  given 
the  English  oak  a  domestic  character,"  while 
American  trees  are  still  to  be  classed  with  the 
wild  flowers  which  bloom  beneath  their  out 
stretched  arms. 

Matthew  Arnold  spoke  of  his  commentaries 
on  England  as  the  writing  of  a  man  chagrined; 
but  what  could  have  chagrined  Hawthorne 
there  ?  The  socially  ambitious  man  may  become 
chagrined,  if  he  finds  that  doors  are  closed  to 
him,  and  so  may  an  unappreciated  would-be 
genius.  But  Hawthorne's  position  as  an  author 
was  already  more  firmly  established  than 
Matthew  Arnold's  ever  could  be;  and  as  for 
social  ambition,  no  writer  since  Shakespeare  has 
been  so  free  from  it.  It  seems  more  probable 
that  the  difficulty  with  Hawthorne  in  this 
respect  was  due  to  his  old  position  on  the 
slavery  question,  which  now  began  to  bear 
bitter  fruit  for  him.  All  Englishmen  at  that 
time,  with  the  exception  of  Carlyle,  Froude, 
and  the  nobility,  were  very  strongly  anti- 
slavery, — the  more  so,  as  it  cost  them  nothing 
to  have  other  men's  slaves  liberated, — and  the 
English  are  particularly  blunt,  not  to  say  gauche, 
in  introducing  topics  of  conversation  which  are 
liable  to  become  a  matter  of  controversy.  At 
the  first  dinner-party  I  attended  in  London 
some  thirty-odd  years  ago,  I  had  scarcely 
tasted  the  soup,  before  a  gentleman  opposite 

279 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

asked  me:  "What  progress  are  you  making  in 
the  United  States  toward  free  trade?  Can  you 
tell  me,  sir?"  He  might  as  well  have  asked  me 
what  progress  we  were  making  in  the  direction 
of  monarchy.  Fortunately  for  Hawthorne,  his 
good  taste  prevented  him  from  introducing  the 
slavery  question  in  his  publications,  excepting 
in  the  life  of  Pierce,  but  for  this  same  reason  his 
English  acquaintances  in  various  places  were 
obliged  to  discover  his  opinions  at  first  hand,  nor 
is  it  very  likely  that  they  were  slow  to  do  this. 
Phillips  and  Garrison  had  been  to  England  and 
through  England,  and  their  dignified  speeches 
had  made  an  excellent  impression.  Longfellow, 
Emerson,  Lowell  and  Whittier  had  spoken  with 
no  uncertain  sound,  protesting  against  what 
they  considered  a  great  national  evil.  How  did 
it  happen  that  Hawthorne  was  an  exception? 

Through  his  kind  friend  Mr.  Bennoch,  he  fell  in 
with  a  worthy  whom  it  would  have  been  just  as 
well  to  have  avoided — the  proverbial-philosophy 
poet,  Martin  Farquhar  Tupper;  not  a  genuine 
poet,  nor  considered  as  such  by  trustworthy 
critics,  but  such  a  good  imitation,  that  he  per 
suaded  himself  and  a  large  portion  of  the  British 
public,  including  Queen  Victoria,  that  he  was  one. 
Hawthorne  has  given  an  account  of  his  visit  to 
this  man,*  second  only  in  value  to  his  description 
of  Tennyson;  for  it  is  quite  as  important  for  us 
to  recognize  the  deficiencies  of  the  one,  as  it  is 
to  know  the  true  appearance  of  the  other.  It 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  ii.  114. 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

is  an  unsparing  study  of  human  nature,  but  if  a 
man  places  himself  on  a  pedestal  for  all  people 
to  gaze  at,  it  is  just  this  and  nothing  more  that 
he  has  to  expect.  Hawthorne  represents  him 
as  a  kindly,  domestic,  affectionate,  bustling  little 
man,  who  kept  on  bustling  with  his  hands  and 
tongue,  even  while  he  was  seated — a  man  of  no 
dignity  of  character  or  perception  of  his  de 
ficiency  of  it.  This  all  does  well  enough,  but 
when  Hawthorne  says,  "  I  liked  him,  and  laughed 
in  my  sleeve  at  him,  and  was  utterly  weary 
of  him;  for  certainly  he  is  the  ass  of  asses,"  we 
feel  that  he  has  gone  too  far,  and  suspect  that 
there  was  some  unpleasantness  connected  with 
the  occasion,  of  which  we  are  not  informed. 
The  word  "ass,"  as  applied  to  a  human  being, 
is  not  current  in  good  literature,  unless  low 
comedy  be  entitled  to  that  position,  and  coming 
from  Hawthorne,  of  all  writers,  it  seems  like 
an  oath  from  the  mouth  of  a  woman.  Tapper, 
who  was  quite  proud  of  his  philanthropy,  was 
also  much  of  an  abolitionist,  and  he  may  have 
trodden  on  Hawthorne's  metaphysical  toes  half 
a  dozen  times,  without  being  aware  of  what  he 
was  doing.  Altogether,  it  seems  like  rather  an 
ill  return  for  Tupper's  hospitality;  but  Haw 
thorne  himself  did  not  intend  it  for  publication, 
and  on  the  whole  one  does  not  regret  that  it  has 
been  given  to  the  public.  We  have  been,  how 
ever,  anticipating  the  order  of  events. 

During  the  summer  of  1854,  the  Hawthorne 
family  made  a  number  of  unimportant  expe 
ditions,  visiting  mediaeval  abbeys  and  ruinous 

281 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

castles, — especially  one  to  Chester  and  Eton  Hall, 
which  was  not  quite  worth  the  fees  they  paid 
to  the  janitors.  An  ancient  walled  city  is  much 
of  a  novelty  to  an  American  for  the  first  time, 
but,  having  seen  one,  you  have  seen  them  all, 
and  Chester  Cathedral  does  not  stand  high  in 
English  architecture.  On  September  14,  O 'Sul 
livan  appeared  again,  and  they  all  went  into  the 
Welsh  mountains,  where  they  examined  the  old 
fortresses  of  Rhyl  and  Conway,  which  were  built 
by  Edward  Longshanks  to  hold  the  Welshmen 
in  check.  Those  relics  of  the  feudal  system  are 
very  impressive,  not  only  on  account  of  their 
solidity  and  the  great  human  forces  which  they 
represent,  but  from  a  peculiar  beauty  of  their 
own,  which  modern  fortifications  do  not  possess 
at  all.  They  seem  to  belong  to  the  ground  they 
stand  on,  and  the  people  who  live  about  them 
look  upon  them  as  cherished  landmarks.  They 
are  the  monuments  of  an  heroic  age,  and  Haw 
thorne's  interest  in  them  was  characteristic  of 
his  nature. 

O 'Sullivan  returned  to  Lisbon  early  in  October, 
and  on  the  5th  of  that  month,  Hawthorne 
found  himself  obliged  to  make  a  speech  at  an 
entertainment  on  board  a  merchant  vessel  called 
the  "James  Barnes,"  which  had  been  built  in 
Boston  for  a  Liverpool  firm  of  ship-owners. 
He  considered  this  the  most  serious  portion  of  his 
official  duty, — the  necessity  of  making  after- 
dinner  speeches  at  the  Mayor's  or  other  public 
tables.  He  writes  several  pages  on  the  subject  in 
a  humorously  complainant  tone,  congratulating 

282 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

himself  that  on  the  present  occasion  he  has 
succeeded  admirably,  for  he  has  really  said 
nothing,  and  that  is  precisely  what  he  intended  to 
do.  After-dinner  speeches  are  like  soap-bubbles : 
they  are  made  of  nothing,  signify  nothing,  float 
for  a  moment  in  the  air,  attract  a  momentary 
attention,  and  then  disappear.  But  the  diffi 
culty  is,  to  make  an  apparent  something  out 
of  nothing,  to  say  nothing  that  will  offend 
anybody,  and  to  say  something  that  will  be 
different  from  what  others  say.  It  is  truly  a 
hard  situation  in  which  to  place  even  a  very 
talented  man,  and,  as  Longfellow  once  remarked, 
those  were  most  fortunate  who  made  their 
speeches  first,  and  could  then  enjoy  their  dinner, 
while  their  successors  were  writhing  in  agony. 
However,  there  are  those  who  like  it,  and  having 
practised  it  to  perfection,  can  do  it  better  than 
anything  else.  Hawthorne  analyzes  his  sensa 
tions,  after  finishing  his  speech,  with  rare  self- 
perception.  "  After  sitting  down,  I  was  conscious 
of  an  enjoyment  in  speaking  to  a  public  assembly, 
and  felt  as  if  I  should  like  to  rise  again.  It  is 
something  like  being  under  fire, — a  sort  of 
excitement,  not  exactly  pleasure,  but  more 
piquant  than  most  pleasures."  Was  it  President 
Jackson,  or  Senator  Benton,  who  said  that 
fighting  a  duel  was  very  much  like  making  one's 
maiden  speech? 

Mrs.  Hawthorne  thus  describes  the  residence  of 
the  President  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  at 
Liverpool :  * 

*Mrs.  Lathrop,  238. 
283 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

"We  were  ushered  into  the  drawing-room, 
which  looked  more  like  a  brilliant  apartment 
in  Versailles  than  what  I  had  expected  to  see. 
The  panels  were  richly  gilt,  with  mirrors  in  the 
centre,  and  hangings  of  gilded  paper;  and  the 
broad  windows  were  hung  with  golden-colored 
damask;  the  furniture  was  all  of  the  same 
hue;  with  a  carpet  of  superb  flowers;  and 
vases  of  living  flowers  standing  everywhere; 
and  a  chandelier  of  diamonds  (as  to  indefatig 
able  and  vivid  shining),  and  candlesticks  of 
the  same, — not  the  long  prisms  like  those  on 
Mary's  astral,  but  a  network  of  crystals  diamond- 
cut.'' 

This  was  the  coarse  commercial  taste  of  the 
time,  previous  to  the  reforms  of  Ruskin  and 
Eastlake.  The  same  might  be  said  of  Versailles. 
There  is  no  true  elegance  in  gilding  and  glass- 
work,  including  mirrors,  unless  they  be  sparingly 
used. 

The  Hawthornes  were  equally  overpowered 
by  a  dinner-party  given  by  a  millionaire  and 
country  squire  of  Liscard  Vale;  "two  enormous 
silver  dish-covers,  with  the  gleam  of  Damascus 
blades,  putting  out  all  the  rest  of  the  light;" 
and  after  the  fish,  these  were  replaced  by  two 
other  enormous  dishes  of  equal  brilliancy.  The 
table  was  shortly  covered  with  an  array  of 
silver  dishes,  reflecting  the  lights  above  in  dazzling 
splendor.  At  one  end  of  the  table  was  a  roast 
goose  and  at  the  other  a  boiled  turkey;  while 
"cutlets,  fricassees,  ragouts,  tongue,  chicken- 
pies,"  and  much  else,  filled  the  intermediate 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

spaces,  and  the  sideboard  groaned  under  a 
round  of  beef  "like  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's." 
It  was  fortunate  that  the  American  consul  came 
to  this  Herculean  repast  with  an  excellent 
appetite. 

Henry  Bright  was  their  chief  refuge  from  this 
flummery,  as  Hawthorne  called  it ;  "  an  extremely 
interesting,  sincere,  earnest,  independent,  warm 
and  generous  hearted  man;  not  at  all  dogmatic; 
full  of  questions,  and  with  ready  answers.  He 
is  highly  cultivated,  and  writes  for  the  West 
minster," — a  man  who  respected  formalities  and 
could  preserve  decorum  in  his  own  household,  but 
liked  a  simple,  unostentatious  mode  of  living — in 
brief,  he  was  a  true  English  gentleman.  Mrs. 
Hawthorne  has  drawn  his  portrait  with  only 
less  skill  than  her  husband: 

"His  eyes  are  large,  bright,  and  prominent, 
rather  indicating  great  facility  of  language, 
which  he  has.  He  is  an  Oxford  scholar,  and  has 
decided  literary  tastes.  He  is  delicately  strung, 
and  is  as  transparent-minded  and  pure-hearted 
as  a  child,  with  great  enthusiasm  and  earnest 
ness  of  character;  and,  though  a  Liberal,  very 
loyal  to  his  Queen  and  very  admiring  of  the 
aristocracy." 

He  appears  to  have  been  engaged  in  the 
Australian  carrying  trade,  and  owned  the  largest 
sailing  vessel  afloat. 

Hawthorne  went  to  an  exhibition  of  English 
landscape  paintings,  and  he  remarked  that 
Turner's  seemed  too  ethereal  to  have  been 
painted  by  mortal  hands, — the  finest  com- 

285 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

pliment  that  Turner  could  have  received,  for  in 
delicate  effects  of  light  and  shade, — in  painting 
the  atmosphere  itself, — he  has  no  rival. 

In  January,  James  Buchanan,  who  was  then 
minister  to  England,  came  to  visit  Hawthorne, 
and  talked  with  him  about  the  presidency, — 
for  which  he  considered  himself  altogether  too 
old ;  but  at  the  same  time  he  did  not  suggest  the 
renomination  of  Franklin  Pierce.  This,  of  course, 
disclosed  his  own  ambition,  and  as  Hawthorne's 
impartial  pen-and-ink  sketch  of  him  may  not 
be  recognized  by  many  readers,  on  account 
of  the  form  in  which  it  appears  in  the  note-books, 
we  append  it  here,  with  the  regret  that  Haw 
thorne  could  not  have  treated  his  friend  Pierce 
in  an  equally  candid  manner. 

"  I  like  Mr.  -  — .  He  cannot  exactly  be  called 
gentlemanly  in  his  manners,  there  being  a  sort 
of  rusticity  about  him;  moreover,  he  has  a 
habit  of  squinting  one  eye,  and  an  awkward 
carriage  of  his  head;  but,  withal,  a  dignity  in 
his  large  person,  and  a  consciousness  of  high 
position  and  importance,  wilich  give  him  ease 
and  freedom.  Very  simple  and  frank  in  his 
address,  he  may  be  as  crafty  as  other  diplo 
matists  are  said  to  be;  but  I  see  only  good 
sense  and  plainness  of  speech, — appreciative, 
too,  and  genial  enough  to  make  himself  con 
versable.  He  talked  very  freely  of  himself 
and  of  other  public  people,  and  of  American 
and  English  affairs.  He  returns  to  America, 
he  says,  next  October,  and  then  retires  forever 
from  public  life. " 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

A  certain  amount  of  rusticity  would  seem  to 
have  been  essential  to  a  presidential  candidate 
during  the  middle  of  the  past  century. 

During  this  dismal  winter  Hawthorne  was 
beset  more  than  ever,  by  nautical  mendicants 
of  all  countries, — Hungarians,  Poles,  Cubans, 
Spanish  Americans,  and  French  Republicans, 
who,  unhappily  for  him,  had  discovered  that  the 
American  consul  was  a  tender-hearted  man. 
He  had,  beside,  to  deal  with  a  number  of  dif 
ficult  cases  of  maltreated  American  sailors, — 
the  more  difficult,  because  both  parties  to  the 
suits  were  greatly  given  to  lying,  even  on 
occasions  when  it  would  have  been  more  ex 
pedient  for  them  to  tell  the  truth.  He  has 
recorded  one  such  in  his  diary,  that  deserves 
more  than  a  superficial  consideration. 

An  American  bark  was  on  the  point  of  sailing, 
when  the  captain  cast  ashore  a  bruised  and 
battered-looking  man,  who  made  his  way  pain 
fully  to  the  consulate,  and  begged  Hawthorne 
for  a  permit  to  be  placed  in  the  hospital.  He 
called  himself  the  son  of  a  South  Carolina  farmer, 
and  stated  that  he  had  gone  on  board  this  vessel 
with  a  load  of  farm  products,  but  had  been 
impressed  by  the  captain  for  the  voyage,  and 
had  been  so  maltreated,  that  he  thought  he 
would  die, — and  so  he  did,  not  long  afterward,  at 
the  hospital.  Letters  were  found  upon  him, 
substantiating  the  statement  concerning  his 
father,  but  it  was  discovered,  from  the  same 
source,  that  he  was  a  jail-bird,  and  the  tattooed 
figures  upon  his  arms  showed  that  he  had  been 

287 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

a  sailor  of  many  years'  standing,  although  he 
had  denied  this  to  the  consul.  Hawthorne 
speaks  of  him  as  an  innocent  man,  the  victim 
of  criminal  brutality  little  less  than  murder; 
it  is  certainly  difficult  to  account  for  such  severe 
ill-treatment,  but  the  man  was  clearly  a  bad 
character,  and  it  is  also  true  that  sea-captains 
do  not  interfere  with  their  deck-hands  without 
some  kind  of  provocation.  The  man  clung 
desperately  to  life  up  to  the  last  moment,  and 
the  letters  he  carried  with  him  indicated  that  he 
was  more  intelligent  than  the  average  of  the 
nautical  fraternity. 

In  June,  Hawthorne  went  with  his  family 
to  Leamington,  of  which  he  afterward  published 
an  account  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  criticised  at 
the  time  for  the  manner  in  which  he  referred 
to  English  ladies,  as  "covering  a  large  area  of 
Nature's  foot-stool";  but  this  element  in  Haw 
thorne's  English  writing  has  already  been 
considered.  From  Leamington  he  went,  early 
in  July,  to  the  English  lakes,  especially  Winder- 
mere,  and  fortunately  found  time  to  thoroughly 
enjoy  them.  He  enjoyed  them  not  only  for  their 
scenery,  which  he  preferred  to  that  of  New 
England,  but  also  as  illustrations  to  many 
descriptive  passages  in  Wordsworth's  poetry, 
which  serves  the  same  purpose  in  the  guidebook 
of  that  region,  as  "Childe  Harold"  serves  in  the 
guidebooks  for  Italy  and  Greece.  Hawthorne 
also  was  interested  in  such  places  for  the  sake  of 
their  associations.  He  describes  Wordsworth's 
house,  the  grounds  about  it,  and  the  cemetery 

288 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

where  he  lies,  with  the  accuracy  of  a  scientific 
report.  He  finds  the  grass  growing  too  high 
about  the  head-stone  of  Wordsworth's  grave, 
and  plucks  it  away  with  his  own  hands,  reflecting 
that  it  may  have  drawn  its  nourishment  from  his 
mortal  remains.  We  may  suppose  that  he 
preserved  this  grass,  and  it  is  only  from  such 
incidental  circumstances  that  we  discover  who 
were  Hawthorne's  favorites  among  poets  and 
other  distinguished  writers.  He  twice  visited 
Wordsworth's  grave. 

Their  first  two  winters  in  Liverpool  had  not 
proved  favorable  to  Mrs.  Hawthorne's  health 
She  had  contracted  a  disorder  in  her  throat 
from  the  prevailing  dampness,  which  threatened 
to  become  chronic,  and  her  husband  felt  that  it 
would  not  be  prudent  for  her  to  remain  there 
another  winter.  He  thought  of  resigning  and 
returning  to  America.  Then  he  thought  of 
exchanging  his  consulship  for  one  in  southern 
Europe,  although  the  salaries  of  the  more 
southern  consulates  were  hardly  sufficient  to 
support  a  married  man.  Then  he  thought  of 
exchanging  places  with  0 'Sullivan,  but  he 
hardly  knew  languages  well  enough  for  an 
ambassador.  The  doctors,  however,  had  advised 
Mrs.  Hawthorne  to  spend  a  winter  at  Madeira, 
and  she  courageously  solved  the  problem  by 
proposing  to  go  there  alone  with  her  daughters, 
for  which  Lisbon  and  O' Sullivan  would  serve  as 
a  stepping-stone  by  the  way.  There  are  wives 
who  would  prefer  such  an  expedition  to  spending 
a  winter  in  England  with  their  husbands,  but 
19  289 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Mrs.  Hawthorne  was  not  of  that  mould,  and  in 
her  case  it  was  a  brave  thing  to  do. 

Accordingly,  on  the  second  Monday  in  October, 
Mrs.  Hawthorne  and  her  two  daughters  sailed  for 
Lisbon.  She  was  presented  at  court  there; 
concerning  which  occasion  she  wrote  a  lengthy 
and  very  interesting  account  to  her  husband, 
published  in  her  son's  biography.  The  King  of 
Portugal  held  a  long  conversation  with  her  and 
Minister  O 'Sullivan,  and  she  describes  him  as 
dressed  in  a  flamboyant  manner, — a  scarlet 
uniform,  lavishly  ornamented  with  diamonds. 
With  how  much  better  taste  did  the  Empress  of 
Austria  receive  the  President  of  the  French 
Republic, — in  a  simple  robe  of  black  velvet, 
fastened  at  her  throat  with  a  diamond  brooch. 
One  can  envy  Mrs.  Hawthorne  a  winter  at 
Madeira,  for  there  is  no  place  in  Europe  pleasanter 
for  that  purpose,  unless  it  be  Rome.  Meanwhile, 
her  husband  spent  the  winter  with  his  son  (who 
was  now  old  enough  to  be  trusted  safely  about  the 
streets),  at  a  sea-captains'  boarding-house  in 
Liverpool.  There,  as  in  Salem,  he  felt  himself 
most  companionable  in  such  company,  as  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  it  from  boyhood;  and  it 
appears  that  at  this  time  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  composing  fables  for  the  entertainment  of 
Julian,  not  unlike  the  yarns  which  sailors  often 
spin  to  beguile  landsmen.* 

Hawthorne  found  his  third  winter  in  Liverpool 
dismal  enough  without  his  wife  and  the  two 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  ii.  75. 
290 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

little  girls,  and  this  feeling  was  considerably 
increased  by  his  dislike  for  the  sea-captains' 
boarding-house  keeper,*  with  whom  he  was 
living,  and  concerning  whom  he  remarks,  that  a 
woman  in  England  "is  either  decidedly  a  lady 
or  decidedly  not. ' '  She  would  not  have  annoyed 
him  so  much,  had  it  not  been  for  "her  bustle, 
affectation,  intensity,  and  pretension  of  literary 
taste."  The  race  of  landladies  contains  curious 
specimens,  although  we  have  met  with  some 
who  were  real  ladies  nevertheless.  Thackeray's 
description  of  a  French  boarding-house  keeper 
in  * '  The  Adventures  of  Philip ' '  goes  to  every 
heart.  Hawthorne  writes  much  in  his  diary, 
at  this  juncture,  of  his  friend  Francis  Bennoch, 
who  clearly  did  the  best  he  could,  as  a  man  and  a 
brother,  to  make  life  cheerful  for  his  American 
friend;  a  true,  sturdy,  warm-hearted  Englishman. 
Christmas  was  celebrated  at  Mrs.  Blodgett's, 
after  the  fashion  of  a  second-rate  English  house 
of  entertainment.  The  servants  hung  mistletoe 
about  in  various  places,  and  woe  to  the  unlucky 
wight  that  was  caught  under  it.  Hawthorne 
presents  an  amusing  picture  of  his  boy  Julian, 
nine  years  old,  struggling  against  the  endear 
ments  of  a  chamber-maid,  and  believes  that  he 
himself  was  the  only  male  person  in  the  house 
that  escaped. f  If  any  man  would  be  sure  to 
escape  that  benediction,  he  would  have  been  the 
one ;  for  no  one  could  be  more  averse  to  public 
demonstrations  of  affection. 

*  English  Note-book,  November  28,  1855. 
t  English  Note-book,  December,   1855. 
291 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Hawthorne  was  witness  to  a  curious  strategic 
manoeuvre  between  President  Pierce  and  Minister 
Buchanan,  which,  however,  he  was  not  suffi 
ciently  familiar  with  practical  politics  to  perceive 
the  full  meaning  of.  On  the  way  to  Southampton 
with  his  wife  in  October,  they  called  on  Buchanan 
in  London,  and  were  not  only  civilly  but  kindly 
received.  Mrs.  Hawthorne  wished  to  view  the 
Houses  of  Parliament  while  they  were  in  session, 
and  the  ambassador  made  a  knot  in  his  handker 
chief,  so  as  to  be  sure  to  remember  his  promise  to 
her.  He  informed  Hawthorne  at  that  time  of 
his  desire  to  return  to  America,  but  stated  that 
the  President  had  just  written  to  him,  requesting 
him  to  remain  until  April,  although  he  was 
determined  not  to  do  so.  He  excused  himself  on 
the  plea  of  old  age,  and  Hawthorne  seems  to  have 
had  a  suspicion  of  the  insincerity  of  this,  but 
concluded  on  reflection  not  to  harbor  it.  Pierce 
knew  already  that  Buchanan  was  his  most 
dangerous  rival  for  renomination,  and  desired 
that  he  should  remain  as  far  off  as  possible; 
while  Buchanan  was  aware  that,  if  he  intended 
to  be  on  the  ground,  he  must  not  return  so  late 
as  to  attract  public  attention.  There  were  so 
many  presidential  aspirants  that  Pierce  may 
have  found  it  difficult  to  supply  Buchanan's 
place,  for  the  time  being. 

Buchanan  delayed  a  respectful  length  of  time, 
and  then  handed  in  his  resignation.  His  suc 
cessor,  George  M.  Dallas,  arrived  at  Liverpool 
during  the  second  week  of  March,  and  Hawthorne 
who  does  not  mention  him  by  name,  called  upon 

292 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

him  at  once,  and  gives  us  this  valuable  portrait 
of  him. 

"The  ambassador  is  a  venerable  old  gentle 
man,  with  a  full  head  of  perfectly  white  hair, 
looking  not  unlike  an  old-fashioned  wig;  and 
this,  together  with  his  collarless  white  neck 
cloth  and  his  brown  coat,  gave  him  precisely 
such  an  aspect  as  one  would  expect  in  a  respect 
able  person  of  pre-revolutionary  days.  There 
was  a  formal  simplicity,  too,  in  his  manners, 
that  might  have  belonged  to  the  same  era.  He 
must  have  been  a  very  handsome  man  in  his 
youthful  days,  and  is  now  comely,  very  erect, 
moderately  tall,  not  overburdened  with  flesh; 
of  benign  and  agreeable  address,  with  a  pleasant 
smile;  but  his  eyes,  which  are  not  very  large, 
impressed  me  as  sharp  and  cold.  He  did  not  at 
all  stamp  himself  upon  me  as  a  man  of  much 
intellectual  or  characteristic  vigor.  I  found 
no  such  matter  in  his  conversation,  nor  did  I 
feel  it  in  the  indefinable  way  by  which  strength 
always  makes  itself  acknowledged.  Buchanan, 
though  somehow  plain  and  uncouth,  yet  vindi 
cates  himself  as  a  large  man  of  the  world,  able, 
experienced,  fit  to  handle  difficult  circumstances 
of  life,  dignified,  too,  and  able  to  hold  his  own 
in  any  society."  * 

Morton  McMichael,  whose  statue  now  stands 
in  Fairmount  Park,  once  related  this  incident 
concerning  Dallas,  at  a  meeting  of  the  Phila 
delphia  Hock  Club.  Somewhere  about  1850 

*  English  Note-book,  March,  1856. 
293 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Dallas  was  invited  to  deliver  a  4th  of  July 
oration  at  Harrisburg,  where  McMichael  was 
also  requested  to  read  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence.  McMichael  performed  his  part  of  the 
ceremony,  and  sat  down;  then  Dallas  arose  and 
thanked  the  assembly  for  honoring  him  with 
such  an  invitation,  but  confessed  to  some  dif 
ficulty  in  considering  what  he  should  say,  for 
an  occasion  which  had  been  celebrated  by  so 
many  famous  orators;  but  that  a  few  nights 
since,  while  he  was  lying  awake,  it  occurred  to 
him  what  he  should  say  to  them.  After  this  he 
proceeded  to  read  his  address  from  a  newspaper 
printed  in  1841,  which  the  audience  could  not 
see,  but  which  McMichael,  from  his  position  on 
the  platform,  could  see  perfectly  well. 

Hawthorne's  description  suggests  a  man  some 
what  like  this ;  but  the  opinion  of  the  Hock  Club 
was  that  Dallas  was  not  greatly  to  blame;  for 
how  could  any  man  make  two  distinct  and 
original  4th  of  July  orations? 

The  ist  of  April  1856,  Hawthorne  and  Ben- 
noch  set  off  on  a  bachelor  expedition  of  their 
own,  first  to  visit  Tupper  at  Albany,  as  has 
been  already  related,  and  then  going  to  view 
a  muster  of  British  troops  at  Aldershot;  thence 
to  Battle  Abbey,  which  Hawthorne  greatly 
admired,  and  the  field  of  Hastings,  where 
England's  greatness  began  in  defeat.  He  does 
not  mention  the  battle,  however,  in  his  diary, 
and  it  may  be  remarked  that,  generally,  Haw 
thorne  felt  little  interest  in  historical  subjects. 
After  this,  they  went  to  London,  where  Bennoch 

294 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

introduced  Hawthorne  at  the  Milton  Club  and 
the  Reform  Club.  At  the  former,  he  again 
encountered  Martin  F.  Tapper,  and  became 
acquainted  with  Tom  Taylor,  the  editor  of 
Punch,  as  well  as  other  writers  and  editors,  of 
whom  he  had  not  previously  heard.  The  Club 
was  by  no  means  Miltonic,  and  one  would  suppose 
not  exactly  the  place  where  Hawthorne  would 
find  himself  much  at  home.  Neither  were  the 
proceedings  altogether  in  good  taste.  Bennoch 
opened  the  ball  with  a  highly  eulogistic  speech 
about  Hawthorne,  and  was  followed  by  some 
fifty  others  in  a  similar  strain,  so  that  the  un 
fortunate  incumbent  must  have  wished  that  the 
earth  would  open  and  let  him  down  to  the  shades 
of  night  below.  On  such  an  occasion,  even  a 
feather  weight  becomes  a  burden.  Oh,  for  a  boy, 
with  a  tin  horn ! 

Neither  did  Hawthorne  apparently  find  his 
peers  at  the  Reform  Club.  Douglas  Jerrold, 
who  reminded  him  somewhat  of  Ellery  Channing, 
was  the  most  notable  writer  he  met  there. 
There  was,  however,  very  little  speech-making, 
and  plenty  of  good  conversation.  Unfortunately, 
he  offended  Jerrold,  by  using  the  word  "acrid" 
as  applied  to  his  writing,  instead  of  some  other 
word,  which  he  could  not  think  of  at  the  moment. 
The  difficulty,  however,  was  made  up  over  a 
fresh  bottle  of  Burgundy,  and  with  the  help  of 
Hawthorne's  unlimited  good-will,  so  that  they 
parted  excellent  friends,  and  much  the  better 
for  having  known  each  other.  Either  Jerrold  or 
some  other  present  told  Hawthorne  that  the 

295 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

English  aristocracy,  for  the  most  part  hated, 
despised,  and  feared  men  of  literary  genius. 
Is  it  not  much  the  same  in  America? 

After  these  two  celebrations,  and  attending 
the  Lord  Mayor's  banquet,  where  he  admired 
the  beautiful  Jewess  whom  he  has  described  as 
Miriam  in  "The  Marble  Faun,"  Hawthorne 
returned  to  Liverpool;  and  early  in  May  took 
another  recess,  with  a  Mr.  Bowman,  to  York, 
Edinburgh,  the  Trossachs,  Abbotsford,  and  all 
the  haunts  of  Scott  and  Burns ;  with  his  account 
of  which  a  large  portion  of  the  second  volume  of 
English  Note-books  is  filled ;  so  that,  if  Scotland 
should  sink  into  the  sea,  as  a  portion  is  already 
supposed  to  have  done  in  antediluvian  times, 
all  those  places  could  be  reconstructed  through 
Hawthorne's  description  of  them. 

This  expedition  lasted  nearly  three  weeks,  and 
on  June  12  Hawthorne  received  word  that  his 
wife,  with  Una  and  Rose,  had  already  landed 
at  Southampton.  He  hastened  at  once  to  meet 
them,  greatly  rejoiced  to  find  Mrs.  Hawthorne 
entirely  restored  to  health.  They  had  been 
separated  for  more  than  seven  months. 

They  first  proceeded  to  Salisbury,  to  see  the 
cathedral  and  Stonehenge, — the  former,  very 
impressive  externally,  but  not  so  satisfactory 
within ;  and  the  latter,  a  work  of  man  emerging 
out  of  Nature.  Then  they  went  to  London,  to 
enjoy  the  June  season,  and  see  the  regular 
course  of  sights  in  that  huge  metropolis.  They 
visited  St.  Paul's,  the  Tower,  Guildhall,  the 
National  Gallery,  the  British  Museum,  West- 

296 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

minster  Abbey,  and  the  Houses  of  Parliament, 
apparently  finding  as  much  satisfaction  in  this 
conventional  occupation  as  they  did  in  the 
social  entertainments  of  London.  At  the  house 
of  Mr.  S.  C.  Hall,  a  noted  entertainer  of  those 
days,  Hawthorne  became  acquainted  with  the 
most  celebrated  singer  of  her  time,  or  perhaps  of 
all  time;  namely,  Jenny  Lind.  No  modern 
orator  has  held  such  a  sway  over  the  hearts  of 
men  and  women,  as  that  Swedish  nightingale,— 
for  the  purity  of  her  voice  seemed  no  more  than 
the  emanation  of  her  lofty  nature.  Hawthorne 
describes  her  as  a  frank,  sincere  person,  rather 
tall, — certainly  no  beauty,  but  with  sense  and 
self-reliance  in  her  aspect  and  manners.  She 
immediately  gave  Hawthorne  an  illustration  of 
her  frankness  by  complaining  of  the  unhealthy 
manner  in  which  Americans,  and  especially 
American  women,  lived.  This  seems  like  a  pro 
saic  subject  for  such  a  person,  but  it  was  natural 
enough;  for  a  concert  singer  has  to  live  like 
a  race-horse,  and  this  would  be  what  would 
constantly  strike  her  attention  in  a  foreign 
country.  Hawthorne  rallied  to  the  support  of 
his  countrywomen,  and  believed  that  they 
were,  on  the  whole,  as  healthy  and  long-lived 
as  Europeans.  This  may  be  so  now,  but  there  has 
been  great  improvement  in  the  American  mode 
of  living,  during  the  past  fifty  years,  and  we  can 
imagine  that  Jenny  Lind  often  found  it  difficult 
to  obtain  such  food  as  she  required. 

That   she    should   have    requested    an   intro 
duction    to    Hawthorne    is    significant    of    her 

297 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

interest  in  American  literature,  and  suggests  a 
taste  as  refined  and  elevated  as  her  music. 

It  was  on  Hawthorne's  wedding-day  this 
happened,  and  a  few  days  later  he  was  invited 
to  a  select  company  at  Monckton  Milnes's, 
which  included  Macaulay,  the  Brownings,  and 
Professor  Ticknor.  He  found  both  the  Brownings 
exceedingly  pleasant  and  accessible,  but  was 
somewhat  startled  to  find  that  Mrs.  Browning 
was  a  believer  in  spiritism — not  such  a  sound  and 
healthy  intelligence  as  the  author  of  "  Middle- 
march,"  and  he  might  have  been  still  more  so, 
if  he  had  known  that  she  and  her  husband  were 
ardent  admirers  of  Louis  Napoleon.  That  was 
something  which  an  American  in  those  days 
could  not  quite  understand.  However,  he  found 
her  an  exceedingly  pleasant  companion.  After 
dinner  they  looked  over  several  volumes  of 
autographs,  in  which  Oliver  Cromwell's  was  the 
only  one  that  would  to-day  be  more  valuable 
than  Hawthorne's  own. 

A  breakfast  at  Monckton  Milnes's  usually 
included  the  reading  of  a  copy  of  verses  of  his 
own  composition,  but  perhaps  he  had  not  yet 
reached  that  stage  on  the  present  occasion. 

Hawthorne  heard  such  varied  and  conflicting 
accounts  of  Charles  Dickens  that  he  hardly 
knew  whether  he  would  like  to  meet  him  or  not. 
He  wanted  to  see  Tennyson  when  he  was  at  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  but  feared  that  his  visit  might  be 
looked  on  as  an  intrusion,  by  a  person  who 
lived  so  retired  a  life, — judging  perhaps  from 
his  own  experience.  While  at  Windermere  he 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

paused  for  a  moment  in  front  of  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau's  cottage,  but  on  second  thought  he  con 
cluded  to  leave  the  good  deaf  lady  in  peace. 

Conway  speaks  of  Hawthorne's  social  life  in 
England  as  a  failure ;  but  failure  suggests  an  ef 
fort  in  some  direction  or  other,  and  Hawthorne 
made  no  social  efforts.  Being  lionized  was  not 
his  business.  He  had  seen  enough  of  it  during 
the  London  season  of  1856,  and  after  that  he 
retired  into  his  domestic  shell,  cultivating 
the  acquaintance  of  his  wife  and  children  more 
assiduously  than  ever,  so  that  even  his  two  faith 
ful  allies,  Bright  and  Bennoch,  found  it  diffi 
cult  to  withdraw  him  from  it.  Watching  the 
development  of  a  fine  child  is  much  more 
satisfactory  than  any  course  of  fashionable 
entertainments — even  than  Lowell's  twenty-nine 
dinner-parties  in  the  month  of  June.  Nothing 
becomes  more  tedious  than  long-continued  pleas 
ure-seeking,  with  post-prandial  speeches  and  a 
constant  effort  to  be  agreeable. 

Hawthorne  remained  in  England  fully  seven 
teen  months  after  this,  and  made  a  number  of 
excursions;  especially  one  to  Oxford,  where  he 
and  his  family  were  dined  by  a  former  mayor  of 
the  city,  and  where  he  greatly  admired  the  broad 
verdant  grounds  and  Gothic  architecture  of  the 
colleges;  and  also  a  second  journey  to  Edin 
burgh  and  the  Trossachs,  undertaken  for  the 
benefit  of  Mrs.  Hawthorne  and  Una.  But  we 
hear  no  more  of  him  in  London  society,  and  it 
only  remains  for  us  to  chronicle  his  exceptional 
kindness  to  an  unfortunate  American  woman. 

299 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

It  seems  strange  that  the  first  doubt  in  regard 
to  the  authorship  of  Shakespeare  should  have 
originated  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  If 
Dante  was  a  self-educated  poet,  there  seems  no 
good  reason  why  Shakespeare  should  not  have 
been ;  and  if  the  greatest  of  French  writers  earned 
his  living  as  an  actor,  why  should  not  the  great 
est  of  English  writers  have  done  the  same? 
That  would  seem  to  be  much  more  in  harmony 
with  the  central  idea  of  American  life — the  prin 
ciple  of  self-helpfulness;  but  this  is  a  skeptical 
epoch,  and  the  tendency  of  our  political  insti 
tutions  is  toward  skepticism  of  character  and 
distrust  of  tradition.  Hence  we  have  Delia 
Bacon,  Holmes,  and  Donnelly. 

Hawthorne  has  given  future  generations  an 
account  of  Delia  Bacon,  which  will  endure  as  the 
portrait  of  a  gifted  and  interesting  woman, 
diverted  from  the  normal  channels  of  feminine 
activity  by  the  force  of  a  single  idea;  but  he 
makes  no  mention  of  his  efforts  in  her  behalf. 
He  found  her  in  the  lodgings  of  a  London  trades 
man,  and  although  she  received  him  in  a  pleas 
ant  and  lady-like  manner,  he  quickly  perceived 
that  her  mind  was  in  an  abnormal  condition, 
and  that  it  was  positively  dangerous  to  discuss 
her  favorite  topic  in  a  rational  manner.  He 
had  a  feeling  that  the  least  opposition  on  his 
part  to  the  Baconian  theory  would  result  in  his 
expulsion  from  the  room,  yet  he  found  her  con 
versation  interesting,  and  recognized  that  if  her 
conclusions  were  erroneous  she  had  neverthe 
less  unearthed  valuable  historic  material,  which 

300 


/• 

I    UNIVERSITY 

OF 

X^/CORS^ 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

ought  to  be  given  to  the  world.  He  loaned  her 
money,  which  he  did  not  expect  to  be  repaid, 
and  exerted  himself  to  find  a  publisher  for  her, 
recollecting  perhaps  the  vows  he  had  made  to 
the  gods  in  the  days  of  his  own  obscurity.  He 
mentions  in  his  diary  calling  on  the  Rutledges  for 
this  purpose — where  he  saw  Charles  Reade,  a 
tall,  strong-looking  man,  just  leaving  the  office. 
He  also  wrote  to  Ticknor  &  Fields,  and  finally 
did  get  Miss  Bacon's  volume  brought  out  in  Lon 
don.  The  critics  treated  it  in  a  contemptuous 
manner,  as  a  desecration  of  Shakespeare's  mem 
ory;  and  Hawthorne  was  prepared  for  this,  but 
it  opened  a  new  era  in  English  bibliography. 
Shortly  after  the  publication  of  her  book  Miss 
Bacon  became  insane. 

To  many  this  appeared  like  a  Quixotic  adven 
ture,  but  now  we  can  see  that  it  was  not,  and 
that  it  was  necessary  in  its  way  to  prove  the 
generosity  of  Hawthorne.  We  can  readily  infer 
from  it  what  he  might  have  done  with  ampler 
means,  and  what  he  must  often  have  wished  to 
do.  To  be  sure,  the  truest  kindness  to  Delia 
Bacon  would  have  been  to  have  purchased  a 
ticket  on  a  Cunard  steamer  for  her,  after  her 
own  funds  had  given  out,  and  to  have  persuaded 
her  to  return  to  her  own  country ;  but  those  who 
have  dealt  with  persons  whose  whole  vitality  is 
absorbed  in  a  single  idea,  can  testify  how  dif 
ficult,  if  not  impossible,  this  would  have  been. 
It  redounds  the  more  to  Hawthorne's  credit 
that  although  Elizabeth  Peabody  was  converted 
to  Delia  Bacon's  theory,  Hawthorne  himself 

301 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

never  entertained  misgivings  as  to  the  reality 
of  Shakespeare  as  a  poet  and  a  dramatist. 

He  had  doubts,  however,  and  I  felt  the  same 
in  regard  to  the  authenticity  of  the  verses  on 
Shakespeare's  marble  slab.  It  is  fortunate  that 
Miss  Bacon's  purpose  of  opening  the  tomb  at 
Stratford  was  not  carried  out,  but  that  is  no 
reason  why  it  should  not  be  opened  in  a  prop 
erly  conducted  manner,  for  scientific  purposes— 
in  order  to  discover  all  that  is  possible  concern 
ing  so  remarkable  and  mysterious  a  personality. 
Raphael's  tomb  has  been  opened,  and  why 
should  not  Shakespeare's  be  also? 

At  the  Democratic  convention  in  1856  the 
Southern  delegates  wished  to  renominate  Frank 
lin  Pierce,  but  the  Northern  delegates  refused 
their  agreement  to  this,  because  they  knew  that 
in  such  a  case  they  would  be  liable  to  defeat  in 
their  own  districts.  James  Buchanan  was  ac 
cordingly  nominated,  and  Pierce 's  fears  in  regard 
to  him  were  fully  realized.  He  was  elected  in 
November,  and  the  following  June  appointed 
Beverly  Tucker  to  succeed  Hawthorne  as  consul 
at  Liverpool.  Hawthorne  resigned  his  office 
on  July  i,  1857,  and  went  with  his  family  on  a 
long  tour  in  Scotland.  Two  weeks  earlier  he 
had  written  a  memorial  to  the  Secretary  of  State 
concerning  the  maltreatment  of  a  special  class  of 
seamen,  which  deserved  more  consideration  than 
it  received  from  the  government  at  Washington. 

The  gold  discoveries  in  California  had  induced 
a  large  immigration  to  America  from  the  Brit- 

302 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

ish  Isles,  and  many  who  went  thither  in  hopes  of 
bettering  their  fortunes  became  destitute  from 
lack  of  employment,  and  attempted  to  work  their 
passage  back  to  Liverpool  in  American  sailing 
vessels.  It  is  likely  that  they  often  repre 
sented  themselves  as  more  experienced  mari 
ners  than  they  actually  wTere,  and  there  were 
also  a  good  many  stowaways  who  might  ex 
pect  little  mercy;  but  there  was  no  court  in 
England  that  could  take  cognizance  of  their 
wrongs, — in  order  to  obtain  justice  they  would 
have  to  return  to  America, — and  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  the  more  brutal  sort  of  officers 
took  advantage  of  this  fact.  The  evil  became  so 
notorious  that  the  British  minister  at  Wash 
ington  requested  Pierce 's  administration  to 
have  legislation  enacted  that  would  cover  this 
class  of  cases,  but  the  President  declined  to  in 
terfere.  This  may  have  been  prudent  policy, 
but  Hawthorne  felt  for  the  sufferers,  and  the 
memorial  that  he  submitted  to  our  government 
on  their  account  has  a  dignity,  a  clearness  and 
cogency  of  statement,  worthy  of  Blacks  tone 
or  Marshall.  It  is  in  marked  contrast  to  the 
evasive  reply  of  Secretary  Cass,  both  for  its  fine 
English  and  for  the  directness  of  its  logic.  It 
is  published  at  length  in  Julian  Hawthorne's 
biography  of  his  father,  and  is  unique  for  the  in 
sight  which  it  affords  as  to  Hawthorne's  men 
tal  ability  in  this  direction.  We  may  infer 
from  it  that  if  he  had  made  a  study  of  juris 
prudence,  he  might  have  risen  to  the  highest 
position  as  a  writer  on  law. 

303 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Hawthorne's  English  Note-books  are  the  least 
interesting  of  that  series,  on  account  of  the 
literal  descriptions  of  castles,  abbeys,  scenery 
and  palaces,  with  which  they  abound.  The 
perfectly  cultivated  condition  of  England  and 
Scotland,  so  far  as  he  went  in  the  latter  country, 
is  not  stimulating  to  the  imagination;  for,  as 
he  says  somewhere,  even  the  trees  seemed  to  be 
thoroughly  domesticated.  They  are  excellent 
reading  for  Americans  who  have  never  been  to 
England,  or  for  those  who  wish  to  renew  their 
memories  in  regard  to  certain  places  there — 
perhaps  better  for  the  latter  than  for  the  former ; 
and  there  are  fine  passages  in  them,  especially 
his  descriptions  of  the  old  abbeys  and  Gothic 
cathedrals,  which  seem  to  have  delighted  him 
more  than  the  gardens  at  Blenheim  and  Eton, 
and  to  have  brought  to  the  surface  a  rare 
quality  in  his  nature,  or  otherwise  hidden  in  its 
depths, —  his  enthusiasm.  Never  before  did 
words  fail  him  until  he  attempted  to  describe  the 
effect  of  a  Gothic  cathedral, —  the  time-hon 
ored  mystery  of  its  arches,  the  sober  radiance 
of  its  stained  windows,  and  the  solemn  aspira 
tion  of  its  lofty  vault.  As  Schiller  says,  they 
are  the  monuments  of  a  mighty  civilization  of 
which  we  know  only  too  little. 

Hawthorne's  object  in  writing  these  detailed 
accounts  of  his  various  expeditions  becomes 
apparent  from  a  passage  in  his  Note-book,  of 
the  date  of  August  21,  1856,  in  which  he  says: 
"In  my  English  romance,  an  American  might 
bring  a  certain  tradition  from  over  the  sea, 

304 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

and  so  discover  the  cross  which  had  been  long 
since  forgotten."  It  may  have  been  his  inten 
tion  from  the  first  to  write  a  romance  based  on 
English  soil,  but  that  soil  was  no  longer  pro 
ductive  of  such  intellectual  fruit,  except  in  the 
form  in  which  Dickens  dug  it  up,  like  peat,  out 
of  the  lower  classes.  We  find  Francis  Ben- 
noch  writing  to  Hawthorne  after  his  return 
to  America,*  hoping  to  encourage  him  in  this  di 
rection,  but  without  apparent  effect.  Instead  of 
a  romance,  he  made  a  collection  of  essays  from 
those  portions  of  his  diary  which  were  most 
closely  connected  together,  enlarging  them  and 
rounding  them  out,  which  he  published  after  his 
return  to  America,  in  the  volume  we  have  often 
referred  to  as  ''Our  Old  Home."  But  as  truth 
ful  studies  of  English  life  and  manners  Mrs. 
Hawthorne's  letters,  though  not  always  sensi 
ble,  are  much  more  interesting  than  her  hus 
band's  diary. 

When  Doctor  Johnson  was  inquired  of  by  a 
lady  why  he  defined  "pastern"  in  his  Diction 
ary  as  the  knee  of  a  horse,  he  replied,  "Igno 
rance,  madam,  pure  ignorance ;' '  and  if  Haw 
thorne  had  been  asked  a  year  afterwards  why 
he  went  to  Scotland  in  the  summer  of  1857, 
instead  of  to  the  Rhine  and  Switzerland,  he 
might  have  given  a  similar  excuse.  In  this 
way  he  missed  the  grandest  and  some  of  the 
most  beautiful  scenery  in  Europe.  He  could 

*  Mrs.  Lathrop,  310. 
20  305 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

not,  however,  have  been  ignorant  of  the  at 
tractions  of  Paris,  and  yet  he  lingered  in  Eng 
land  until  the  following  January,  and  then 
went  over  to  that  metropolis  of  fashion  at  a 
most  unseasonable  time.  He  had,  indeed, 
planned  to  leave  England  in  October,*  and  does 
not  explain  why  he  remained  longer.  He  made 
a  last  visit  to  London  in  November,  where  he 
became  reconciled  to  his  fellow-townsmen  of 
Salem,  in  the  person  of  Edward  Silsbee,  of 
whom  he  writes  as  "a  man  of  great  intelligence 
and  true  feeling,  absolutely  brimming  over 
with  ideas/'  Mr.  Silsbee  was  an  amateur 
art  critic  and  connoisseur,  who  often  made 
himself  serviceable  to  American  travellers  in 
the  way  of  a  gentleman-cicerone.  He  went 
with  the  Hawthorne  family  to  the  Crystal 
Palace,  where  there  were  casts  of  all  famous 
statues,  models  of  architecture,  and  the  like, 
and  gave  Hawthorne  his  first  lesson  in  art  criti 
cism.  Hawthorne  indicated  a  preference  for 
Michel  Angelo's  statue  of  Giuliano  de'  Medici, 
called  "II  Pensero;"  also  for  the  "Perseus" 
of  Cellini,  and  the  Gates  of  the  Florentine  Bap 
tistery  by  Lorenzo  Ghiberti.  If  we  except  the 
other  statues  of  Michel  Angelo,  these  are  the 
most  distinguished  works  in  sculpture  of  the 
modern  world. 

*  English  Note-book,  December,  1857. 


306 


CHAPTER  XIV 
ITALY 

HAWTHORNE  went  to  Italy  as  naturally  as 
the  salmon  ascends  the  rivers  in  spring.  His 
artistic  instinct  drew  him  thither  as  the  original 
home  of  modern  art  and  literature,  and  per 
haps  also  his  interest  in  the  Latin  language, 
the  single  study  which  he  cared  for  in  boyhood. 
Does  not  romance  come  originally  from  Roma, — 
as  well  as  Romulus?  He  wished  to  stand  where 
Caesar  stood,  to  behold  the  snowy  Soracte  of 
Horace,  and  to  read  Virgil's  description  of  an 
Italian  night  on  Italian  ground.  It  is  noticeable 
that  he  cared  little  or  nothing  for  the  splendors 
of  Paris,  the  glittering  peaks  of  Switzerland, 
medical-musical  Vienna,  or  the  grand  scholar 
ship  and  homely  sweetness  of  old  Germany. 

Of  all  the  Anglo-Saxon  writers  who  have 
celebrated  Italy,  Byron,  Shelley,  Rogers,  Ruskin 
and  the  two  Brownings,  none  were  more  ad 
mirably  equipped  for  it  than  Hawthorne.  We 
cannot  read  "The  Romance  of  Monte  Beni" 
without  recognizing  a  decidedly  Italian  element 
in  his  composition, — not  the  light-hearted, 
subtle,  elastic,  fiery  Italian,  such  as  we  are 
accustomed  to  think  them,  but  the  tenderly 
feeling,  terribly  earnest  Tuscan,  like  Dante 
and  Savonarola.  The  myrtle  and  the  cypress 
are  both  emblematic  of  Italian  character,  and 

307 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

there  was  more  of  the  latter  than  the  former, 
though  something  of  either,  in  Hawthorne's 
own  make-up. 

The  Hawthornes  left  London  on  January 
6,  and,  reaching  Paris  the  following  day,  they 
made  themselves  comfortable  at  the  Hotel  du 
Louvre.  However,  they  only  remained  there 
one  week,  during  which  it  was  so  cold  that  they 
saw  little  and  enjoyed  little.  They  went  to 
Notre  Dame,  the  Louvre,  the  Madeleine,  and 
the  Champs  Ely  sees,  but  without  being  greatly 
impressed  by  what  they  beheld.  Hawthorne 
does  not  mention  a  single  painting  or  statue 
among  the  art  treasures  of  the  Louvre,  which 
if  rivalled  elsewhere  are  certainly  unsurpassed; 
but  Hawthorne  began  his  studies  in  this  line  by 
an  examination  of  the  drawings  of  the  old 
masters,  and  confesses  that  he  was  afterward  too 
much  fatigued  to  appreciate  their  finished 
paintings. 

On  January  19  they  reached  Marseilles,  and 
two  days  later  they  embarked  on  that  dreary 
winter  voyage,  so  pleasant  at  an  earlier  season, 
for  Civita  Vecchia;  and  on  the  2oth  they  rolled 
into  the  Eternal  City,  with  such  sensations  as 
one  may  imagine.  On  the  24th  they  located 
themselves  for  the  season  in  the  Palazzo  Lara- 
zani,  Via  Porta  Pinciana.* 

Nemo  similis  Homeri.  —  There  is  nothing 
like  the  charm  of  a  first  visit  to  Rome.  The 
first  sight  of  the  Forum,  with  its  single  pathetic 


*  Italian  Note-book. 
308 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

column,  brings  us  back  to  our  school-days,  to 
the  study  of  Caesar  and  the  reading  of  Plutarch; 
and  the  intervening  period  drops  out  of  our 
lives,  taking  all  our  care  and  anxiety  with  it. 
In  England,  France,  Germany,  we  feel  the 
weight  of  the  present,  but  in  Rome  the  present 
is  like  a  glass  window  through  which  we  view 
the  grand  procession  of  past  events.  What  is, 
becomes  of  less  importance  than  what  was,  and 
for  the  first  time  we  feel  the  true  sense  of  our 
indebtedness  to  the  ages  that  have  gone  before. 
We  bathe  deep  in  the  spirit  of  classical  anti 
quity,  and  we  come  out  refreshed,  enlarged  and 
purified.  We  return  to  the  actualities  of  to-day 
with  a  clearer  understanding,  and  better  pre 
pared  to  act  our  part  in  them. 

Hawthorne  did  not  feel  this  at  first.  He  ar 
rived  in  inclement  weather,  and  it  was  some 
weeks  before  he  became  accustomed  to  the 
climatic  conditions — so  different  from  any 
northern  atmosphere.  He  hated  the  filth  of  the 
much-neglected  city,  the  squalor  of  its  lower 
classes,  the  narrowness  of  its  streets,  and  the 
peculiar  pavement,  which,  as  he  says  makes 
walking  in  Rome  a  penitential  pilgrimage. 
He  goes  to  the  carnival,  and  his  penetrating 
glance  proves  it  to  be  a  sham  entertainment. 

But  in  due  course  he  emerges  from  this  mood ; 
he  rejoices  in  the  atmospheric  immensity  of 
St.  Peter's;  he  looks  out  from  the  Pincian  hill, 
and  sees  Nivea  Soracte  as  Horace  beheld  it ;  and 
he  is  overawed  (if  Hawthorne  could  be)  by  the 
Forum  of  Trajan  and  the  Column  of  Antoninus. 

309 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

He  makes  a  great  discovery,  or  rediscovery,  that 
Phidias 's  colossal  statues  of  Castor  and  Pollux 
on  the  Monte  Cavallo  are  the  finest  figures  in 
Rome.  They  are  late  Roman  copies,  but  prob 
ably  from  Phidias, — not  by  Lysippus  or  Prax 
iteles  ;  and  he  felt  the  presence  of  Michel  Angelo 
in  the  Baths  of  Diocletian.  It  is  not  long 
before  he  goes  to  the  Pincian  in  the  after 
noon  to  play  at  jack-stones  with  his  youngest 
daughter. 

William  W.  Story,  the  American  sculptor, 
would  seem  to  have  been  a  former  acquaintance. 
His  father,  the  famous  law  lecturer,  lived  in 
Salem  during  Hawthorne's  youth,  but  after 
ward  removed  to  Cambridge,  where  the  younger 
Story  was  educated,  and  there  married  an 
intimate  friend  of  Mrs.  James  Russell  Lowell. 
This  brought  him  into  close  relations  with 
Lowell,  Longfellow,  and  their  most  intimate 
friends.  He  was  something  of  a  poet,  and  more 
of  a  sculptor,  but,  inheriting  an  independent 
fortune  and  living  in  the  Barberini  Palace,  he  soon 
became  more  of  an  Englishman  than  an  Ameri 
can,  a  tendency  which  was  visibly  increased  by 
a  patent  of  nobility  bestowed  on  him  by  the 
King  of  Naples. 

Hawthorne  soon  renewed  William  Story's 
acquaintance,  and  found  him  modelling  the 
statue  of  Cleopatra,  of  which  Hawthorne  has 
given  a  somewhat  idealized  description  in  "The 
Marble  Faun."  This  may  have  interested 
him  the  more  from  the  fact  that  he  witnessed 

310 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

its  development  under  the  sculptor's  hands, 
and  saw  that  distinguished  historical  person 
emerge  as  it  were  out  of  the  clay,  like  a  second 
Eve;  but  he  makes  a  mental  reservation  that 
it  would  be  better  if  English  and  American 
sculptors  would  make  a  freer  use  of  their  chisels 
—of  which  more  hereafter.  Story  was  a  light- 
hearted,  discursive  person,  with  a  large  amount 
of  bric-a-brac  information,  who  could  appreciate 
Hawthorne  either  as  a  genius  or  as  a  celebrity. 
He  soon  became  Hawthorne's  chief  companion 
and  social  mainstay  in  Rome,  literally  a  vade 
mecum,  and  we  may  believe  that  he  exercised 
more  or  less  influence  over  Hawthorne's  judg 
ment  in  matters  of  art. 

Hawthorne  listened  to  Story,  and  read  Mrs. 
Jameson,  although  Edward  Silsbee  had  warned 
him  against  her  as  an  uncertain  authority; 
but  Hawthorne  depended  chiefly  on  his  own 
investigations.  He  and  his  wife  declined  an 
invitation  to  Mrs.  Story's  masquerade,  and 
lived  very  quietly  during  this  first  winter  in 
Rome,  making  few  acquaintances,  but  seeing 
a  good  deal  of  the  city.  They  went  together 
to  all  the  principal  churches  and  the  princely 
galleries;  and  beside  this  Hawthorne  traversed 
Rome  from  one  end  to  the  other,  and  across  in 
every  direction,  sometimes  alone,  or  in  com 
pany  with  Julian,  investigating  everything  from 
the  Mamartine  prison,  in  which  Jugurtha  was 
starved,  to  the  catacombs  of  St.  Calixtus  and  the 
buffaloes  on  the  Campagna.  The  impression 
which  Conway  gives,  that  he  went  about  sight- 

311 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

seeing  and  drinking  sour  wine  with  Story  and 
Lothrop  Motley,  is  not  quite  correct,  for  Motley 
did  not  come  to  Rome  until  the  following  Decem 
ber,  and  then  only  met  Hawthorne  a  few  times, 
according  to  his  own  confession.*  We  must 
not  forget,  however,  that  excellent  lady  and 
skilful  astronomer,  Miss  Maria  Mitchell,  who 
joined  the  Hawthorne  party  in  Paris,  and  be 
came  an  indispensable  accompaniment  to  them 
the  rest  of  the  winter. 

Hawthorne  also  became  acquainted  with 
Buchanan  Read,  who  afterward  painted  that 
stirring  picture  of  General  Sheridan  galloping 
to  the  battle  of  Cedar  Run;  and  on  March  12 
Mr.  Read  gave  a  party,  at  his  Roman  dwelling, 
of  painters  and  sculptors,  which  Hawthorne 
attended,  and  has  entered  in  full,  with  the 
moonlight  excursion  afterward,  in  "The  Marble 
Faun. "  There  Hawthorne  met  Gibson,  to 
whom  he  refers  as  the  most  distinguished  sculptor 
of  the  time.  So  he  was,  in  England,  but  there 
were  much  better  sculptors  in  France  and  in 
Germany.  Gibson's  personality  interested 
Hawthorne,  as  it  well  might,  but  he  saw  clearly 
that  Gibson  was  merely  a  skilful  imitator  of 
the  antique,  or,  as  he  calls  him,  a  pagan  idealist. 
He  also  made  acquaintance  with  two  American 
sculptors,  a  Yankee  and  a  girlish  young  woman, 
whose  names  are  prudently  withheld;  for  he 
afterward  visited  their  studios,  and  readily 
discovered  that  they  had  no  real  talent  for  their 
profession. 

*  Mrs.  Lathrop,  406. 
312 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

If  we  feel  inclined  to  quarrel  with  Hawthorne 
anywhere,  it  is  in  his  disparagement  of  Crawford. 
There  might  be  two  opinions  in  regard  to  the 
slavery  question,  but  there  never  has  been  but 
one  as  to  the  greatest  of  American  artists.  It 
was  a  pity  that  his  friend  Hillard  could  not 
have  been  with  Hawthorne  at  this  time  to 
counteract  the  jealous  influences  to  which  he 
was  exposed.  He  writes  no  word  of  regret  at 
the  untimely  death  of  Crawford,  but  goes  into 
his  studio  after  that  sad  event  and  condemns 
his  work.  Only  the  genre  figure  of  a  boy  playing 
marbles,  gives  him  any  satisfaction  there; 
although  a  plea  of  extenuation  might  be  entered 
in  Hawthorne's  favor,  for  statues  of  heroic  size 
could  not  be  seen  to  greater  disadvantage  than 
when  packed  together  in  a  studio.  The  immense 
buttons  on  the  waistcoats  of  our  revolutionary 
heroes  seem  to  have  startled  him  on  his  first 
entrance,  and  this  may  be  accepted  as  an  indica 
tion  of  the  rest.  Yet  the  tone  of  his  criticism, 
both  in  the  " Note-book"  and  in  "The  Marble 
Faun,"  is  far  from  friendly  to  Crawford.  He 
does  not  refer  to  the  statue  of  Beethoven,  which 
was  Crawford's  masterpiece,  nor  to  the  statue 
of  Liberty,  which  now  poses  on  the  lantern  of 
the  Capitol  at  Washington, — much  too  beautiful, 
as  Hartmann  says,  for  its  elevated  position, 
and  superior  in  every  respect  to  the  French 
statue  of  Liberty  in  New  York  harbor. 

Hawthorne  had  already  come  to  the  conclu 
sion  that  there  was  a  certain  degree  of  poison  in 
the  Roman  atmosphere,  and  in  April  he  found 

313 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

the  climate  decidedly  languid,  but  he  had  fallen 
in  love  with  this  pagan  capital  and  he  hated  to 
leave  it.  Mrs.  Anna  Jameson  arrived  late  in 
April;  a  sturdy,  warm-hearted  Englishwoman 
greatly  devoted  to  art,  for  which  her  books 
served  as  elementary  treatises  and  pioneers  to 
the  English  and  Americans  of  those  days.  She 
was  so  anxious  to  meet  Hawthorne  that  she 
persuaded  William  Story  to  bring  him  and  his 
wife  to  her  lodgings  when  she  was  too  ill  to  go 
forth.  They  had  read  each  other's  writings  and 
could  compliment  each  other  in  all  sincerity, 
for  Mrs.  Jameson  had  also  an  excellent  narrative 
style ;  but  Hawthorne  found  her  rather  didactic, 
and  although  she  professed  to  be  able  "to  read 
a  picture  like  a  book, ' '  her  conversation  was 
by  no  means  brilliant.  She  had  contracted  an 
unhappy  marriage  early  in  life,  and  found  an 
escape  from  her  sorrows  and  regrets  in  this 
elevated  interest. 

It  was  just  before  leaving  Rome  that  Haw 
thorne  conceived  the  idea  of  a  romance  in  which 
the  "Faun"  of  Praxiteles  should  come  to  life, 
and  play  a  characteristic  part  in  the  modern 
world ;  the  catastrophe  naturally  resulting  from 
his  coming  into  conflict  with  a  social  organi 
zation  for  which  he  was  unfitted.  This  portion 
of  Hawthorne's  diary  is  intensely  interesting  to 
those  who  have  walked  on  classic  ground. 

On  May  24  Hawthorne  commenced  his  journey 
to  Florence  with  a  vetturino  by  easy  stages,  and 
one  can  cordially  envy  him  this  portion  of  his 
Italian  sojourn;  with  his  devoted  wife  and 

314 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

three  happy  children;  travelling  through  some 
of  the  most  beautiful  scenery  in  the  world, — 
nearly  if  not  quite  equal  to  the  Rhineland — 
without  even  the  smallest  cloud  of  care  and 
anxiety  upon  his  sky,  his  mind  stored  with 
mighty  memories,  and  looking  forward  with 
equal  expectations  to  the  prospect  before  him,— 
bella  Firenze,  the  treasure-house  of  Italian 
cities ;  through  sunny  valleys,  with  their  streams 
and  hill-sides  winding  seaward;  up  the  precipi 
tous  spurs  of  the  Apennines,  with  their  old 
baronial  castles  perched  like  vultures'  nests  on 
inaccessible  crags;  passing  through  gloomy, 
tortuous  defiles,  guarded  by  Roman  strong 
holds;  and  then  drawn  up  by  white  bullocks 
over  Monte  Somma,  and  to  the  mountain  cities 
of  Assisi  and  Perugia,  older  than  Rome  itself; 
by  Lake  Trasimenus,  still  ominous  of  the  name 
of  Hannibal;  over  hill-sides  silver-gray  with 
olive  orchards;  always  a  fresh  view  and  a  new 
panorama,  bounded  by  the  purple  peaks  on  the 
horizon;  and  over  all,  the  tender  blue  of  the 
Italian  sky.  Hawthorne  may  have  felt  that 
his  whole  previous  life,  all  he  had  struggled, 
lived  and  suffered  for,  was  but  a  preparation 
for  this  one  week  of  perfectly  harmonious  exist 
ence.  Such  vacations  from  earthly  troubles 
come  but  rarely  in  the  most  fortunate  lives,  and 
are  never  of  long  duration. 

When  they  reached  Florence,  they  found  it, 
as  Rose  Hawthorne  says,  very  hot — much  too 
hot  to  enjoy  the  city  as  it  should  be  enjoyed. 
Her  reminiscences  of  their  life  at  Florence,  and 

315 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

especially  of  the  Villa  Manteiito,  have  a  charm 
ing  freshness  and  virginal  simplicity,  although 
written  in  a  somewhat  high-flown  manner. 
She  succeeds,  in  spite  of  her  peculiar  style,  in 
giving  a  distinct  impression  of  the  old  chateau, 
its  surroundings,  the  life  her  family  led  there, 
and  of  the  wonderful  view  from  Bellosguardo. 
One  feels  that  beneath  the  disguise  of  a  fashion 
able  dress  there  is  an  innocent,  sympathetic, 
and  pure-spirited  nature. 

The  Hawthornes  arrived  in  Florence  on  the 
afternoon  of  June  3,  and  spent  the  first  night 
at  the  Albergo  della  Fontano,  and  the  next  day 
obtained  apartments  in  the  Casa  del  Bello, 
opposite  Hiram  Powers'  studio,  and  just  out 
side  of  the  Porta  Romana.  Hawthorne  made 
Mr.  Powers'  acquaintance  even  before  he  entered 
the  city,  and  Powers  soon  became  to  him  what 
Story  had  been  in  Rome.  The  Brownings  were 
already  at  Casa  Guidi, — still  noted  in  the 
annals  of  English  poesy, — and  called  upon  the 
Hawthornes  at  the  first  notice  of  their  arrival. 
Alacrity  or  readiness  would  seem  to  have  been 
one  of  Robert  Browning's  prominent  charac 
teristics.  Elizabeth  Browning's  mind  was  as 
much  occupied  with  spiritism  as  when  Haw 
thorne  met  her  two  years  previously  at  Monck- 
ton  Milnes's  breakfast;  an  unfortunate  pro 
clivity  for  a  person  of  frail  physique  and  delicate 
nerves.  Neither  did  she  live  very  long  after 
this.  Her  husband  and  Hawthorne  both  cor 
dially  disapproved  of  these  mesmeric  practices; 
but  Mrs.  Browning  could  not  be  prevented 

316 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

from  talking  on  the  subject,  and  this  evidently 
produced  an  ecstatic  and  febrile  condition  of 
mind  in  her,  very  wearing  to  a  poetic  tempera 
ment.  Hawthorne  heartily  liked  Browning 
himself,  and  always  speaks  well  of  him;  but 
there  must  also  have  been  an  undercurrent  of 
disagreement  between  him  and  so  ardent  an 
admirer  of  Louis  Napoleon,  and  he  recalls 
little  or  nothing  of  what  Browning  said  to  him. 
This  continued  till  the  last  of  June,  when  Robert 
and  Elizabeth  left  Florence  for  cooler  regions. 

Meanwhile  Hawthorne  occupied  himself  seri 
ously  with  seeing  Florence  and  studying  art, 
like  a  man  who  intends  to  get  at  the  root  of  the 
matter.  Florence  afforded  better  advantages 
than  Rome  for  the  study  of  art,  not  only  from 
the  superiority  of  its  collections,  but  because 
there  the  development  of  mediaeval  art  can  be 
traced  to  its  fountain-source.  He  had  no  text 
books  to  guide  him, — at  least  he  does  not  refer 
to  any, — and  his  investigations  were  conse 
quently  of  rather  an  irregular  kind,  but  it  was 
evidently  the  subject  which  interested  him 
most  deeply  at  this  time.  His  Note-book  is  full 
of  it,  and  also  of  discussions  on  sculpture  with 
Hiram  Powers,  in  which  Hawthorne  has  fre 
quently  the  best  of  the  argument. 

In  fact  Powers  looked  upon  his  art  from  much 
too  literal  a  stand-point.  He  agreed  with  Haw 
thorne  as  to  the  fine  expression  of  the  face  of 
Michel  Angelo's  "Giuliano  de'  Medici,"*  but 

*As  Hawthorne  did  not  prepare  his  diary  for  publication, 
it  would  not  be  fair  to  hold  him  responsible  for  the  many 

317 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

affirmed  that  it  was  owing  to  a  trick  of  over 
shadowing  the  face  by  the  projecting  visor  of 
Giuliano's  helmet.  Hawthorne  did  not  see  why 
such  a  device  did  not  come  within  the  range  of 
legitimate  art,  the  truth  of  the  matter  being 
that  Michel  Angelo  left  the  face  unfinished; 
but  the  expression  of  the  statue  is  not  in  its 
face,  but  in  the  inclination  of  the  head,  the  posi 
tion  of  the  arms,  the  heavy  droop  of  the  armor, 
and  in  fact  in  the  whole  figure.  Powers'  "  Greek 
Slave,"  on  the  contrary,  though  finely  modelled 
and  sufficiently  modern  in  type,  has  no  definite 
expression  whatever. 

Hawthorne  found  an  exceptional  interest  in 
the  " Venus  de'  Medici,"  now  supposed  to  have 
been  the  work  of  one  of  the  sons  of  Praxiteles, 
and  its  wonderful  symmetry  gives  it  a  radiance 
like  that  of  the  sun  behind  a  summer  cloud; 
but  Powers  cooled  down  his  enthusiasm  by 
objecting  to  the  position  of  the  ears,  the  vacancy 
of  the  face,  the  misrepresentation  of  the  inner 
surface  of  the  lips,  and  by  condemning  particu 
larly  the  structure  of  the  eyes,  which  he  de 
clared  were  such  as  no  human  being  could  see 
with.*  Hawthorne  was  somewhat  puzzled  by 
these  subtleties  of  criticism,  which  he  did  not 
know  very  well  how  to  answer,  but  he  still  held 
fast  to  the  opinion  that  he  was  fundamentally 
right,  and  retaliated  by  criticising  Powers' 
own  statues  in  his  diary. 

instances  of  bad  Italian  in  the  Note-book,  which  ought  to 
have  been  edited  by  some  one  who  knew  the  language. 
*  Italian  Note-book,  June  13,  1858. 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

The  Greeks,  in  the  best  period  of  their 
favorite  art,  never  attempted  a  literal  repro 
duction  of  the  human  figure.  Certain  features, 
like  the  nostrils,  were  merely  indicated;  others, 
like  the  eyelashes,  often  so  expressive  in  woman, 
were  omitted  altogether;  hair  and  drapery  were 
treated  in  a  schematic  manner.  In  order  to 
give  an  expression  to  the  eyes,  various  devices 
were  resorted  to.  The  eyelids  of  the  bust  of 
Pericles  on  the  Acropolis  had  bevelled  edges, 
and  the  eyeballs  of  the  "Apollo  Belvedere" 
are  exceptionally  convex,  to  produce  the  effect 
of  looking  to  a  distance,  although  the  human 
eye  when  gazing  afar  off  becomes  slightly  con 
tracted.  The  head  of  the  ''Venus  de'  Medici "  is 
finely  shaped,  but  small,  and  her  features  are 
pretty,  rather  than  beautiful ;  but  her  eyes  are 
exceptional  among  all  feminine  statues  for  their 
tenderness  of  expression — swimming,  as  it  were, 
with  love;  and  it  is  the  manner  in  which  this 
effect  is  produced  that  Powers  mistook  for  bad 
sculpture.  Hiram  Powers'  most  exceptional 
proposition  was  to  the  effect  that  the  busts  of 
the  Roman  emperors  were  not  characteristic 
portraits.  Hawthorne  strongly  dissented  from 
this ;  and  he  was  in  the  right,  for  if  the  character 
of  a  man  can  be  read  from  marble,  it  is  from 
those  old  blocks.  Hawthorne  has  some  admirable 
remarks  on  this  point. 

Such  was  Hawthorne's  internal  life  during  his 
first  month  at  Florence.  He  was  full  of  admi 
ration  for  the  cathedral,  the  equestrian  statue 
of  Cosmo  de'  Medici,  the  "David"  of  Michel 

319 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Angelo,  the  Loggia  de'  Lanzi,  Raphael's  portrait 
of  Julius  II.,  the  ''Fates"  of  Michel  Angelo,  and 
many  others;  yet  he  confesses  that  the  Dutch, 
French,  and  English  paintings  gave  him  a  more 
simple,  natural  pleasure, — probably  because  their 
subjects  came  closer  to  his  own  experience. 

A  strange  figure  of  an  old  man,  with  "  a  Palmer- 
like  beard, "  continually  crossed  Hawthorne's 
path,  both  in  Rome  and  in  Florence,  where  he 
dines  with  him  at  the  Brownings'.  His  name  is 
withheld,  but  Hawthorne- informs  us  that  he  is 
an  American  editor,  a  poet;  that  he  voted  for 
Buchanan,  and  was  rejoicing  in  the  defeat  of 
the  Free-soilers, — "  a  man  to  whom  the  world 
lacks  substance  because  he  has  not  sufficiently 
cultivated  his  emotional  nature;"  and  "his 
personal  intercourse,  though  kindly,  does  not 
stir  one's  blood  in  the  least."  Yet  Hawthorne 
finds  him  to  be  good-hearted,  intelligent,  and 
sensible.  This  can  be  no  other  than  William 
Cullen  Bryant.* 

In  the  evening  of  June  27  the  Hawthornes 
went  to  call  on  a  Miss  Blagden,  who  occupied 
a  villa  on  Bellosguardo,  and  where  they  met 
the  Brownings,  and  a  Mr.  Trollope,  a  brother 
of  the  novelist.  It  could  not  have  been  the 
Villa  Manteiito,  which  Miss  Blagden  rented, 
for  we  hear  of  her  at  Bellosguardo  again  in 
August,  when  Hawthorne  was  living  there  him 
self  ;  and  after  this  we  do  not  hear  of  the  Brown 
ings  again. 

*  Italian   Note-book,  ii.  15. 
320 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Hawthorne's  remark  on  Browning's  poetry 
is  one  of  the  rare  instances  in  which  he  criticises 
a  contemporary  author : 

"  I  am  rather  surprised  that  Browning's  con 
versation  should  be  so  clear,  and  so  much  to  the 
purpose  at  the  moment,  since  his  poetry  can 
seldom  proceed  far,  without  running  into  the  high 
grass  of  latent  meanings  and  obscure  allusions. " 

It  is  precisely  this  which  has  prevented 
Browning  from  achieving  the  reputation  that 
his  genius  deserves.  We  wish  that  Hawthorne 
could  have  favored  us  with  as  much  literary 
criticism  as  he  has  given  us  of  art  criticism,  and  we 
almost  lose  patience  with  him  for  his  repeated 
canonization  of  General  Jackson — St.  Hickory- 
united  with  a  disparagement  of  Washington  and 
Sumner ;  but  although  Hawthorne's  insight  into 
human  nature  was  wonderful  in  its  way,  it 
would  seem  to  have  been  confined  within  narrow 
boundaries.  At  least  he  seems  to  have  pos 
sessed  little  insight  into  grand  characters  and 
magnanimous  natures.  He  wishes  now  that 
Raphael  could  have  painted  Jackson's  portrait. 
So,  conversely,  Shakespeare  belittles  Caesar  in 
order  to  suit  the  purpose  of  his  play.  Which  of 
Shakespeare's  male  characters  can  be  measured 
beside  George  Washington?  There  is  not  one 
of  them,  unless  Kent  in  "King  Lear."  Strong, 
resolute  natures,  like  Washington,  Hamilton, 
Sumner,  are  not  adapted  to  dramatic  fiction, 
either  in  prose  or  in  verse. 

A  Florentine  summer  is  about  equal  to  one 
in  South  Carolina,  and  now,  when  Switzerland 
21  321 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

can  be  reached  by  rail  in  twenty-four  hours,  no 
American  or  Englishman  thinks  of  spending 
July  and  August  there;  but  in  Hawthorne's 
time  it  was  a  long  and  expensive  journey  over 
the  Pennine  Alps;  Hawthorne's  physique  was 
as  well  attempered  to  heat  as  to  cold;  and  he 
continued  to  frequent  the  picture-galleries  and 
museums  after  all  others  had  ceased  to  do  so; 
although  he  complains  in  his  diary  that  he  had 
never  known  it  so  hot  before,  and  that  the  flag 
stones  in  the  street  reflect  the  sun's  rays  upon 
him  like  the  open  doors  of  a  furnace. 

At  length,  in  an  entry  of  July  27,  he  says: 

"I  seldom  go  out  nowadays,  having  already 
seen  Florence  tolerably  well,  and  the  streets 
being  very  hot,  and  myself  having  been  engaged 
in  sketching  out  a  romance,*  which  whether 
it  will  ever  come  to  anything  is  a  point  yet  to 
be  decided.  At  any  rate,  it  leaves  me  little 
heart  for  journalizing,  and  describing  new 
things;  and  six  months  of  uninterrupted  mo 
notony  would  be  more  valuable  to  me  just  now, 
than  the  most  brilliant  succession  of  novelties." 

This  is  the  second  instance  in  which  we  hear 
of  a  romance  based  on  the  "  Faun  "  of  Praxiteles, 
and  now  at  last  he  appears  to  be  in  earnest. 

It  may  be  suspected  that  his  entertaining 
friend,  Hiram  Powers,  was  the  chief  obstacle  to 
the  progress  of  his  new  plot,  and  it  is  rather 
amusing  to  believe  that  it  was  through  the 
agency  of  Mr.  Powers,  who  cared  for  nothing  so 


*"The    Marble    Faun." 
322 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

much  as  Hawthorne's  welfare,  that  this  im 
pediment  was  removed.  Five  days  later,  Haw 
thorne  and  his  household  gods,  which  were 
chiefly  his  wife  and  children,  left  the  Casa  del 
Bello  for  the  Villa  Manteuto  where  they  remained 
in  peaceful  retirement  until  the  first  of  October. 

On  the  tower  of  the  Villa  he  could  enjoy 
whatever  enlivening  breezes  came  across  to 
Florence  from  the  mountains  to  the  north  and 
east.  When  the  tramontanes  blew,  he  was  com 
fortable  enough.  Thunder-storms  also  came 
frequently,  with  the  roar  of  heaven's  artillery 
reverberating  from  peak  to  peak,  and  enveloping 
Bellosguardo  in  a  dense  vapor,  like  the  smoke 
from  Napoleon's  cannon ;  after  which  they  would 
career  down  the  valley  of  the  Arno  to  Pisa, 
flashing  and  cannonading  like  a  victorious  army 
in  pursuit  of  the  enemy. 

The  beauty  of  the  summer  nights  at  Florence 
amply  compensates  for  the  sultriness  of  the 
days, — especially  if  they  be  moonlight  nights,— 
and  the  bright  starlight  of  the  Mediterranean 
is  little  less  beautiful.  Travellers  who  only  see 
Italy  in  winter,  know  not  what  they  miss. 
Hawthorne  noticed  that  the  Italian  sky  had  a 
softer  blue  than  that  of  England  and  America, 
and  that  there  was  a  peculiar  luminous  quality 
in  the  atmosphere,  as  well  as  a  more  decided 
difference  between  sunshine  and  shadow,  than 
in  countries  north  of  the  Alps.  The  atmosphere 
of  Italy,  Spain,  and  Greece  is  not  like  any  Ameri 
can  air  that  I  am  acquainted  with.  During  the 
summer  season,  all  Italians  whose  occupation 

323 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

will  permit  them,  sleep  at  noon, — the  laborers 
in  the  shadows  of  the  walls, — and  sit  up  late  at 
night,  enjoying  the  fine  air  and  the  pleasant 
conversation  which  it  inspires.  Hawthorne 
found  the  atmosphere  of  Tuscany  favorable 
for  literary  work,  even  in  August. 

On  the  4th  of  that  month  he  looked  out  from 
his  castle  wall  late  at  night  and  noticed  the 
brilliancy  of  the  stars, — also  that  the  Great 
Dipper  exactly  overhung  the  valley  of  the  Arno. 
At  that  same  hour  the  astronomer  Donati  was 
sweeping  the  heavens  with  his  telescope  at  the 
Florentine  observatory,  and  it  may  have  been 
ten  days  later  that  he  discovered  in  the  handle 
of  the  Dipper  the  great  comet  which  will 
always  bear  his  name, — the  most  magnificent 
comet  of  modern  times,  only  excepting  that  of 
1680,  which  could  be  seen  at  noonday.  It  first 
became  visible  to  the  naked  eye  during  the  last 
week  of  August,  as  a  small  star  with  a  smaller 
tail,  near  the  second  star  from  the  end  of  the 
handle  of  the  Dipper;  after  which  it  grew  apace 
until  it  extended  nearly  from  the  horizon  to  the 
zenith,  with  a  tail  millions  of  miles  in  length. 
This,  however,  did  not  take  place  until  near  the 
time  of  Hawthorne's  departure  from  Florence. 
In  his  case  it  proved  sorrowfully  enough  a  har 
binger  of  calamity. 

Hawthorne  blocked  out  his  sketch  of  "The 
Romance  of  Monte  Beni"  in  a  single  month, 
and  then  returned  to  the  churches  and  picture- 
galleries.  He  could  not  expect  to  revisit  Italy 
in  this  life,  and  prudently  concluded  to  make 

324 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

the  most  of  it  while  the  opportunity  lasted.  He 
notices  the  peculiar  fatigue  which  sight-seeing 
causes  in  deep  natures,  and  becomes  unspeakably 
weary  of  it,  yet  returns  to  it  again  next  day 
with  an  interest  as  fresh  as  before. 

Neither  did  he  lack  for  society.  William 
Story  came  over  to  see  him  from  Siena,  where 
he  was  spending  the  summer,  exactly  as  Haw 
thorne  describes  the  visit  of  Kenyon  to  Dona- 
tello  in  his  romance.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Powers 
came  frequently  up  the  hill  in  the  cool  of  the 
evening,  and  Miss  Blagden  also  proved  an  ex 
cellent  neighbor.  Early  in  September  the 
"spirits"  appeared  again  in  great  force.  Mrs. 
Hawthorne  discovered  a  medium  in  her  English 
governess;  table-rappings  and  table-tippings 
were  the  order  of  the  evening;  and  some  rather 
surprising  results  were  obtained  through  Miss 
Shepard's  fingers.*  Powers  related  a  still  more 
surprising  performance |  that  he  had  witnessed, 
which  was  conducted  by  D.  D.  Home,  an 
American  mountebank,  who  hoaxed  more 
crowned  heads,  princes,  princesses,  and  espe 
cially  English  duchesses  than  Cagliostro  him 
self.  Hawthorne  felt  the  repugnance  of  the 
true  artist  to  this  uncanny  business,  and  his 
thorough  detestation  of  the  subject  commends 
itself  to  every  sensible  reader.  He  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  supposed  revelations  of 
spirits  were  nothing  more  than  the  mental 


*J.  Hawthorne,  i.  31. 
t  Italian  Note-book. 

325 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

vagaries  of  persons  in  the  same  room,  conveyed 
in  some  occult  manner  to  the  brain  of  the  me 
dium.  The  governess,  Miss  Shepard,  agreed 
with  him  in  this,  but  she  could  give  no  expla 
nation  as  to  the  manner  in  which  the  response 
came  to  her.  Twenty  years  of  scientific  in 
vestigations  have  added  little  or  nothing  to 
this  diagnosis  of  Hawthorne's,  nor  are  we  any 
nearer  to  an  explanation  of  the  simple  fact; 
which  is  wonderful  enough  in  its  way.  Haw 
thorne  compares  the  revelations  of  mediums  to 
dreams,  but  they  are  not  exactly  like  them, 
for  they  are  at  the  same  time  more  rational  and 
less  original  or  spontaneous  than  dreams.  In 
my  dreams  my  old  friends  often  come  back  to 
me  and  speak  in  their  characteristic  manner,— 
more  characteristic  perhaps  than  I  could  rep 
resent  them  when  awake, — but  the  responses 
of  mediums  are  either  evasive  or  too  highly 
generalized  to  be  of  any  particular  value.  The 
story  of  Mary  Runnel,  or  Rondel,  which  Julian 
Hawthorne  narrates,  is  an  excellent  case  in 
point.  Hawthorne  had  probably  heard  of  that 
flirtation  of  his  grandfather  some  time  in  his 
youth,  and  the  fact  was  unconsciously  latent  in 
his  mind;  but  nothing  that  Mary  divulged  at 
Bellosguardo  was  of  real  interest  to  him  or  to 
the  others  concerned.  The  practice  of  spiritism, 
hypnotism,  or  Christian  Science  opens  a  wide 
door  for  superstition  and  imposture  to  walk  in 
and  seat  themselves  by  our  firesides. 

About  a  year  before  this,  Congress  had  given 
Hiram  Powers  a  commission  to  model  a  colossal 

326 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

statue  of  America  for  the  Capitol  at  Washington. 
This  he  had  done,  and  the  committee  in  charge 
accepted  his  design, — Hawthorne  also  writes 
admiringly  of  it, — but  it  was  also  necessary  to 
receive  the  approval  of  the  President,  and  this 
Buchanan  with  his  peculiar  obstinacy  refused 
to  give.  Powers  was  left  without  compensation 
for  a  whole  year  of  arduous  labor,  and  Haw 
thorne  for  once  was  thoroughly  indignant. 
He  wrote  in  his  diary: 

"  I  wish  our  great  Republic  had  the  spirit 
to  do  as  much,  according  to  its  vast  means,  as 
Florence  did  for  sculpture  and  architecture 

when  it  was  a  republic And 

yet  the  less  we  attempt  to  do  for  art  the  better, 
if  our  future  attempts  are  to  have  no  better 
result  than  such  brazen  troopers  as  the  eques 
trian  statue  of  General  Jackson,  or  even  such 
naked  respectabilities  as  Greeneough's  Washing 
ton. " 

Perhaps  Powers'  " America"  was  a  fortunate 
escape,  and  yet  it  does  not  seem  right  that  any 
enlightened  government  should  set  such  a  pit 
fall  for  honest  men  to  stumble  into.  There 
certainly  ought  to  be  some  compensation  in 
such  cases.  The  experience  of  history  hitherto 
has  been  that,  whereas  painting  and  literature 
have  flourished  under  all  forms  of  government, 
sculpture  has  only  attained  its  highest  excellence 
in  republics  like  Athens,  Rhodes,  Florence,  and 
Nuremberg;  so  that  upon  this  line  of  argument 
there  is  good  hope  for  America  in  the  future. 


327 


CHAPTER  XV 
HAWTHORNE  AS  ART  CRITIC:   1858 

NEARLY  one-third  of  the  Italian  Note -book 
is  devoted  to  the  criticisms  or  descriptions  of 
paintings,  statues,  and  architecture,  for  which 
we  can  be  only  too  thankful  as  coming  from 
such  a  bright,  penetrating,  and  ingenious  in 
telligence.  It  is  much  in  their  favor  that 
Hawthorne  had  not  previously  undertaken  a 
course  of  instruction  in  art ;  that  he  wrote  for  his 
own  benefit,  and  not  for  publication;  and  that 
he  was  not  biased  by  preconceived  opinions. 
It  cannot  be  doubted  that  he  was  sometimes 
influenced  by  the  opinions  of  Story,  Powers, 
and  other  artists  with  whom  he  came  in  contact ; 
but  this  could  have  happened  only  in  particular 
cases,  and  more  especially  in  respect  to  modern 
works  of  art.  When  Hawthorne  visited  the 
galleries  he  usually  went  alone,  or  only  accom 
panied  by  his  wife. 

The  only  opportunities  for  the  study  of  aes 
thetics  or  art  criticism,  fifty  years  ago,  were  to  be 
found  in  German  universities.  Kugler's  hand 
book  of  painting  was  the  chief  authority  in  use, 
rather  academic,  but  correct  enough  in  a  gen 
eral  way.  Ruskin,  a  more  eloquent  and  dis 
criminating  writer,  had  devoted  himself  chiefly 
to  celebrating  the  merits  of  Turner  and  Tin 
toretto,  but  was  never  quite  just  to  Florentine 

328 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

art.  Mrs.  Jameson  followed  closely  after  Kug- 
ler,  and  was  the  only  one  of  these  that  Haw 
thorne  appears  to  have  consulted.  Winckel- 
mann's  history  of  Greek  sculpture,  which  was 
not  a  history  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word, 
had  been  translated  by  Lodge,  but  Hawthorne 
does  not  mention  it,  and  it  would  not  have  been 
much  assistance  to  him  if  he  had  read  it.  Like 
Winckelmann  and  Lessing,  however,  he  ad 
mired  the  "Laocoon," — an  admiration  now 
somewhat  out  of  fashion. 

There  can  be  no  final  authority  in  art,  for  the 
most  experienced  critics  still  continue  to  differ 
in  their  estimates  of  the  same  painting  or  statue. 
More  than  this,  it  is  safe  to  affirm  that  any  one 
writer  who  makes  a  statement  concerning  a  certain 
work  of  art  at  a  given  time,  would  have  made 
a  somewhat  different  statement  at  another 
time.  In  fact,  this  not  unfrequently  happens 
in  actual  practice ;  for  all  that  any  of  us  can  do 
is,  to  reproduce  the  impression  made  on  us  at 
the  moment,  and  this  depends  as  much  on  our 
own  state  of  mind,  and  on  our  peculiarities,  as 
on  the  peculiarities  of  the  picture  or  statue  that 
we  criticise.  It  is  the  same  in  art  itself.  If 
Raphael  had  not  painted  the  "  Sistine  Madonna' ' 
at  the  time  he  did,  he  would  have  produced  a 
different  work.  It  was  the  concentration  of 
that  particular  occasion,  and  if  any  accident 
had  happened  to  prevent  it,  that  pious  and 
beautiful  vision  would  have  been  lost  to  the  world. 

It  requires  years  of  study  and  observation 
of  the  best  masters  to  become  a  trustworthy 

329 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

art  critic,  and  then  everything  depends  of  course 
upon  the  genius  of  the  individual.  It  has  hap 
pened  more  than  once  that  a  wealthy  American, 
with  a  certain  kind  of  enthusiasm  for  art,  has 
prepared  himself  at  a  German  university,  has 
studied  the  science  of  connoisseurship,  and  has 
become  associate  member  of  a  number  of  for 
eign  societies,  only  to  discover  at  length  that  he 
had  no  talent  for  the  profession.  Hawthorne 
enjoyed  no  such  advantages,  nor  did  he  even 
think  of  becoming  a  connoisseur.  His  whole 
experience  in  the  art  of  design  might  be 
included  within  twelve  months,  and  his  origi 
nal  basis  was  nothing  better  than  his  wife's 
water-color  painting  and  the  mediocre  pictures 
in  the  Boston  Athenaeum;  but  he  brought  to 
his  subject  an  eye  that  was  trained  to  the  closest 
observation  of  Nature  and  a  mind  experienced 
beyond  all  others  *  in  the  mysteries  of  human 
life.  He  begins  tentatively,  and  as  might  be  ex 
pected  makes  a  number  of  errors,  but  quite  as 
often  he  hits  the  nail,  where  others  have  missed 
it.  He  learns  by  his  mistakes,  and  steadily 
improves  in  critical  faculty.  Hawthorne's  Ital 
ian  Note-book  is  a  unique  record,  in  which  the 
development  of  a  highly  organized  mind  has 
advanced  from  small  beginnings  to  exceptional 
skill  in  a  fresh  department  of  activity. 

Hawthorne  brought  with  him  to  Italy  the 
Yankee  preference  for  newness  and  nicety, 
which  our  forefathers  themselves  derived  from 


*  At  least   at  that  time. 
330 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

their  residence  in  Holland,  and  there  is  no  city 
in  Europe  where  this  sentiment  could  have 
troubled  him  so  much  as  in  Rome.  He  dis 
liked  the  dingy  picture-frames,  the  uncleanly 
canvases,  the  earth-stains  and  broken  noses 
of  the  antique  statues,  the  smoked-up  walls  of 
the  Sistine  Chapel,  and  the  cracks  in  Raphael's 
frescos.  He  condemns  everything  as  rubbish 
which  has  not  an  external  perfection;  forget 
ting  that,  as  in  human  nature,  the  most  precious 
treasures  are  sometimes  allied  with  an  ungainly 
exterior.  Yet  in  this  he  only  echoes  the  impres 
sions  of  thousands  of  others  who  have  gone  to 
the  Vatican  and  returned  disconsolate,  because 
amid  a  perplexing  multitude  of  objects  they 
knew  not  where  to  look  for  consummate  art. 
One  can  imagine  if  an  experienced  friend  had 
accompanied  Hawthorne  to  the  Raphael  stanza, 
and  had  pointed  out  the  figures  of  the  Pope,  the 
cardinal,  and  the  angelic  boys  in  the  ''Mass  at 
Bolsena,"  he  would  have  admired  them  without 
limitation.  He  quickly  discovered  Raphael's 
"Transfiguration,"  and  considered  it  the  greatest 
painting  that  the  world  contains. 

The  paintings  in  the  princely  collections  in 
Rome  are,  with  the  exception  of  those  in  the 
Borghese  gallery,  far  removed  from  princely. 
A  large  proportion  of  their  best  paintings  had 
long  since  been  sold  to  the  royal  collections  of 
northern  Europe,  and  had  been  replaced  either 
by  copies  or  by  works  of  inferior  masters.  In 
the  Barberini  palace  there  are  not  more  than 
three  or  four  paintings  such  as  might  reasonably 

331 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

detain  a  traveller,  and  it  is  about  the  same  in 
the  Ludovisi  gallery.  There  was  not  a  grain  of 
affectation  in  Hawthorne;  he  never  pretended 
to  admire  what  he  did  not  like,  nor  did  he  strain 
himself  into  liking  anything  that  his  inner  na 
ture  rebelled  against. 

Hawthorne's  taste  in  art  was  much  in  ad 
vance  of  his  time.  His  quick  appreciation  of 
the  colossal  statues  of  Castor  and  Pollux  on 
the  Quirinal  is  the  best  proof  of  this.  Ten  years 
later  it  was  the  fashion  in  Rome  to  deride  those 
statues,  as  a  late  work  of  the  empire  and  greatly 
lacking  in  artistic  style.  Brunn,  in  his  history 
of  ancient  sculpture,  attributes  them  to  the 
school  of  Lysippus,  a  contemporary  of  Alex 
ander,  which  Brunn  certainly  would  not  have 
done  if  he  had  possessed  a  good  eye  for  form. 
Vasari,  on  the  contrary,  a  surer  critic,  con 
sidered  them  worthy  to  be  placed  beside  Michel 
Angelo's  "David";  but  it  remained  for  Furtwan- 
gler  to  restore  them  to  their  true  position  as  a 
work  of  the  Periclean  age,  although  copied  by 
Italian  sculptors.  They  must  have  been  the 
product  of  a  single  mind,*  either  Phidias,  Al- 
cameres,  or  the  elder  Praxiteles — if  there  ever 
was  such  a  person;  and  they  have  the  finest 
figures  of  any  statues  in  Rome  (much  finer  than 
the  dandified  "Apollo  Belvedere")  and  also  the 
most  spirited  action. 

Hawthorne  went  to  the  Villa  Ludovisi  to 
see  the  much- vaunted  bas-relief  of  Antinous, 

*  On  the  base  of  one  is  Opus  Phidia,  and  on  that  of  the 
other,  Opus  Praxitelis. 

332 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

which  fifty  years  ago  was  considered  one  of 
the  art  treasures  of  the  city ;  but  a  more  refined 
taste  has  since  discovered  that  in  spite  of  the 
rare  technical  skill,  its  hard  glassy  finish  gives 
it  a  cold  and  conventional  effect.  Hawthorne 
returned  from  it  disappointed,  and  wrote  in  his 
diary : 

"This  Antinous  is  said  to  be  the  finest  relic 
of  antiquity  next  to  the  Apollo  and  the  Laocoon ; 
but  I  could  not  feel  it  to  be  so,  partly,  I  suppose, 
because  the  features  of  Antinous  do  not  seem 
to  me  beautiful  in  themselves;  and  that  heavy, 
downward  look  is  repeated  till  I  am  more  weary 
of  it  than  of  anything  else  in  sculpture.  " 

The  Greek  artist  of  Adrian's  time  attempted 
to  give  the  face  a  pensive  expression,  but  only 
succeeded  in  this  heavy  downward  look. 

Hawthorne  felt  the  same  disappointment 
after  his  first  visit  to  the  sculpture-gallery  of 
the  Vatican.  "  I  must  confess,"  he  wrote,  "tak 
ing  such  transient  glimpses  as  I  did,  I  was  more 
impressed  with  the  extent  of  the  Vatican,  and 
the  beautiful  order  in  which  it  is  kept  and  its 
great  sunny,  open  courts,  with  fountains,  grass, 
and  shrubs  .  .  .  than  with  the  statuary."  The 
Vatican  collection  has  great  archaeological  value, 
but,  with  the  exception  of  the  "Laocoon,"  the 
"Meleager,"  the  "Apollo,"  and  a  few  others,  little 
or  no  artistic  value.  The  vast  majority  of  the 
statues  there  are  either  late  Roman  works  or 
cheap  Roman  copies  of  second-rate  Hellenic 
statues.  Some  of  them  are  positively  bad  and 
others  are  archaic,  and  Hawthorne  was  fully  justi- 

333 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

fied  in  his  disatisf action  with  them.  He  noticed, 
however,  a  decided  difference  between  the  original 
''Apollo"  and  the  casts  of  it  with  which  he  was 
familiar.  On  a  subsequent  visit  he  fails  to  observe 
the  numerous  faults  in  Canova's  "  Perseus,"  and 
afterwards  writes  this  original  statement  con 
cerning  the  "Laocoon": 

"  I  felt  the  Laocoon  very  powerfully,  though 
very  quietly ;  an  immortal  agony  with  a  strange 
calmness  diffused  through  it,  so  that  it  resem 
bles  the  vast  age  of  the  sea,  calm  on  account 
of  its  immensity;  as  the  tumult  of  Niagara, 
which  does  not  seem  to  be  tumult,  because  it 
keeps  pouring  on  forever  and  ever. " 

Professor  E.  A.  Gardner  and  the  more  fas 
tidious  school  of  crities  have  recently  decided 
that  the  action  of  the  "Laocoon"  is  too  violent 
to  be  contained  within  the  proper  boundaries 
of  sculpture;  but  Hawthorne  controverts  this 
view  in  a  single  sentence.  The  action  is  violent, 
it  is  true,  but  the  impression  which  the  statue 
makes  on  him  is  not  a  violent  one;  for  the 
greatness  of  the  art  sublimates  the  motive.  It 
is  a  tragedy  in  marble,  and  Pliny,  who  had 
seen  the  works  of  Phidias  and  Praxiteles,  placed 
Agesander's  "Laocoon"  above  them  all. 
This,  however,  is  a  Roman  view.  What  Haw 
thorne  wrote  in  his  diary  should  not  always 
be  taken  literally.  When  he  declares  that  he 
would  like  to  have  every  artist  that  perpetrates 
an  allegory  put  to  death,  he  merely  expresses 
the  puzzling  effects  which  such  compositions 
frequently  exercise  on  the  weary-minded 

334 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

traveller ;  and  when  he  wishes  that  all  the  frescos 
on  Italian  walls  could  be  obliterated,  he  only 
repeats  a  sentiment  of  similar  strain.  Perhaps 
we  should  class  in  the  same  category  Haw 
thorne's  remark  concerning  the  Elgin  marbles 
in  the  British  Museum,  that  "it  would  be  well  if 
they  were  converted  into  paving-stones."  There 
are  no  grander  monuments  of  ancient  art  than 
those  battered  and  headless  statues  from  the 
pediment  of  the  Parthenon  (the  figures  of  the 
so-called  "Three  Fates"  surpass  the  "Venus  of 
Melos"),  and  archseologists  are  still  in  dispute 
as  to  what  they  may  have  represented;  but 
the  significance  of  the  subject  before  him  was 
always  the  point  in  which  Hawthorne  was  in 
terested.  Julian  Hawthorne  says  of  his  father, 
in  regard  to  a  similar  instance: 

"Of  technicalities, — difficulties  overcome,  harmony  of 
lines,  and  so  forth, — he  had  no  explicit  knowledge;  they 
produced  their  effect  upon  him  of  course,  but  without  his 
recognizing  the  manner  of  it.  All  that  concerned  him  was 
the  sentiment  which  the  artist  had  meant  to  express;  the 
means  and  method  were  comparatively  unimportant.  "* 

The  technicalities  of  art  differ  with  every  clime 
and  every  generation.  They  belong  chiefly  to 
the  connoisseur,  and  have  their  value,  but  the 
less  a  critic  thinks  of  them  in  making  a  general 
estimate  of  a  painting  or  statue,  the  more  likely 
he  is  to  render  an  impartial  judgment.  Haw 
thorne's  analysis  of  Praxiteles's  "Faun,"  in 
his  "Romance  of  Monte  Beni,"  being  a  subject 


*  J.  Hawthorne,  ii.   193. 
335 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

in  which  he  was  particularly  interested,  is  almost 
without  a  rival  in  the  literature  of  its  kind; 
and  this  is  the  more  remarkable  since  the  copy 
of  the  "Faun"  in  the  museum  of  the  Capitol 
is  not  one  of  the  best,  at  least  it  is  inferior  to 
the  one  in  the  Glyptothek  at  Munich.  It  seems 
as  if  Hawthorne  had  penetrated  to  the  first  con 
ception  of  it  in  the  mind  of  Praxiteles. 

The  Sistine  Chapel,  like  the  Italian  scenery, 
only  unfolds  its  beauties  on  a  bright  day,  and 
Hawthorne  happened  to  go  there  when  the  sky 
was  full  of  drifting  clouds,  a  time  when  it  is 
difficult  to  see  any  object  as  it  really  is.  It  may 
have  been  on  this  account  that  he  entirely  mis 
took  the  action  of  the  Saviour  in  Michel  Angelo's 
"Last  Judgment."  Christ  has  raised  his  arm 
above  his  head  in  order  to  display  the  mark 
where  he  was  nailed  to  the  cross,  and  Hawthorne 
presumed  this,  as  many  others  have  done,  to  be 
an  angry  threatening  gesture  of  condemnation, 
which  would  not  accord  with  his  merciful  spirit. 
He  appreciated  the  symmetrical  figure  of  Adam, 
and  the  majestic  forms  of  the  prophets  and 
sibyls  encircling  the  ceiling,  and  if  he  had  seen 
the  face  of  the  Saviour  in  a  fair  light,  he  might 
have  recognized  that  such  divine  calmness  of 
expression  could  not  coexist  with  a  vindictive 
motive.  This,  however,  can  be  seen  to  better 
advantage  in  a  Braun  photograph  than  in  the 
painting  itself. 

Hawthorne  goes  to  the  Church  of  San  Pietro 
in  Vincolo  to  see  Michel  Angelo's  "Moses,"  but 
he  does  not  moralize  before  it,  like  a  certain 

336 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Concord  artist,  on  "the  weakness  of  exaggera 
tion;"  nor  does  he  consider,  like  Ruskin,  that 
its  conventional  horns  are  a  serious  detriment. 
On  the  contrary  he  finds  it  "grand  and  sublime, 
with  a  beard  flowing  down  like  a  cataract;  a 
truly  majestic  figure,  but  not  so  benign  as  it 
were  desirable  that  such  strength  should  hold." 
An  Englishman  present  remarked  that  the 
"Moses"  had  very  fine  features, — "a  compli 
ment,  "says  Hawthorne,  "for  which  the  colossal 
Hebrew  ought  to  have  made  the  Englishman 
a  bow."* 

Perhaps  the  Englishman  really  meant  that 
the  face  had  a  noble  expression.  The  somewhat 
satyr-like  features  of  the  "Moses"  would  seem 
to  have  been  unconsciously  adopted,  together 
with  the  horns,  from  a  statue  of  the  god  Pan, 
which  thus  serves  as  an  intermediate  link  be 
tween  the  "Moses"  and  the  "Faun"  of  Praxiteles; 
but  he  who  cannot  appreciate  Michel  Angelo's 
"Moses"  in  spite  of  this,  knows  nothing  of  the 
Alpine  heights  of  human  nature. 

Of  all  the  paintings  that  Hawthorne  saw  in 
Rome  none  impressed  him  so  deeply  as  Guide's 
portrait  of  Beatrice  Cenci,  and  none  more  justly. 
If  the  "Laocoon"  is  the  type  of  an  old  Greek 
tragedy,  a  strong  man  strangled  in  the  coils  of 
Fate,  the  portrait  of  Beatrice  represents  the 
tragedy  of  mediaeval  Italy,  a  beautiful  woman 
crushed  by  the  downfall  of  a  splendid  civiliza 
tion.  The  fate  of  Joan  of  Arc  or  of  Madame 

*  Italian  Note-book,  p.  164. 
22  337 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Roland  was  merciful  compared  to  that  of  poor 
Beatrice.  Religion  is  no  consolation  to  her, 
for  it  is  the  Pope  himself  who  signs  her  death- 
warrant.  She  is  massacred  to  gratify  the  av 
arice  of  the  Holy  See.  Yet  in  this  last  evening 
of  her  tragical  life,  she  does  find  strength  and 
consolation  in  her  dignity  as  a  woman.  Never 
was  art  consecrated  to  a  higher  purpose ;  Guido 
rose  above  himself;  and,  as  Hawthorne  says, 
it  seems  as  if  mortal  man  could  not  have  wrought 
such  an  effect.  It  has  always  been  the  most  pop 
ular  painting  in  Rome,  but  Hawthorne  was  the 
first  to  celebrate  its  unique  superiority  in  writ 
ing,  and  his  discourse  upon  it  in  various  places 
leaves  little  for  those  that  follow. 

It  may  have  been  long  since  discovered  that 
Hawthorne's  single  weakness  was  a  weakness 
for  his  friends;  certainly  an  amiable  weakness, 
but  nevertheless  that  is  the  proper  name  for  it. 
When  Phocion  was  Archon  of  Athens,  he  said 
that  a  chief  magistrate  should  know  no  friends; 
and  the  same  should  be  true  of  an  authoritative 
writer.  Hawthorne  has  not  gone  so  far  in  this 
direction  as  many  others  have  who  had  less 
reason  to  speak  with  authority  than  he;  but 
he  has  indicated  his  partiality  for  Franklin 
Pierce  plainly  enough,  and  his  over-praise 
of  Hiram  Powers  and  William  Story,  as  well 
as  his  under-praise  of  Crawford,  will  go  down 
to  future  generations  as  something  of  an  in 
justice  to  those  three  artists. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  repeat  here  what  Haw 
thorne  wrote  concerning  Powers'  Webster.  The 

338 


GUIDO  RENI  S  PORTRAIT  OF  BEATRICE  CENCI,  PAINTED  WHILE  SHE 
WAS  IN  PRISON,  WHICH  SUGGESTED  TO  HAWTHORNE  THE  PLOT 
OF  "  THE  MARBLE  FAUN  " 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

statue  stands  in  front  of  the  State  House 
at  Boston,  and  serves  as  a  good  likeness  of  the 
famous  orator,  but  more  than  that  one  cannot 
say  for  it.  The  face  has  no  definable  expres 
sion,  and  those  who  have  looked  for  a  central 
motive  in  the  figure  will  be  pleased  to  learn  what 
it  is  by  reading  Hawthorne's  description  of  it, 
as  he  saw  it  in  Powers'  studio  at  Florence. 
A  sculptor  of  the  present  day  can  find  no  better 
study  for  his  art  than  the  attitudes  and  changes 
of  countenance  in  an  eloquent  speaker  ;  but 
w^hich  of  them  can  be  said  to  have  taken  ad 
vantage  of  this?  Story  made  an  attempt  in  his 
statue  of  Everett,  but  even  his  most  indulgent 
friends  did  not  consider  it  a  success.  His 
"  George  Peabody,"  opposite  the  Bank  of  Eng 
land,  could  not  perhaps  have  been  altogether 
different  from  what  it  is. 

What  chiefly  interested  Story  in  his  profession 
seems  to  have  been  the  modelling  of  unhappy 
women  in  various  attitudes  of  reflection.  He 
made  a  number  of  these,  of  which  his  "Cleo 
patra"  is  the  only  one  known  to  fame,  and  in 
the  expression  of  her  face  he  has  certainly 
achieved  a  high  degree  of  excellence.  Neither 
has  Hawthorne  valued  it  too  highly, — the  ex 
pression  of  worldly  splendor  incarnated  in  a 
beautiful  woman  on  the  tragical  verge  of  an 
abyss.  If  she  only  were  beautiful!  Here  the 
limitations  of  the  statue  .commence.  Haw 
thorne  says,  "The  sculptor  had  not  shunned 
to  give  the  full,  Nubian  lips  and  other  char 
acteristics  of  the  Egyptian  physiognomy." 

339 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Here  he  follows  the  sculptor  himself,  and  it  is 
remarkable  that  a  college  graduate  like  William 
Story  should  have  made  so  transparent  a  mis 
take.  Cleopatra  was  not  an  Egyptian  at  all. 
The  Ptolemies  were  Greeks,  and  it  is  simply 
impossible  to  believe  that  they  would  have 
allied  themselves  with  a  subject  and  alien  race. 
This  kind  of  small  pedantry  has  often  led  artists 
astray,  and  was  peculiarly  virulent  during  the 
middle  of  the  past  century.  The  whole  figure 
of  Story's  "Cleopatra"  suffers  from  it.  Haw 
thorne  says  again,  "She was  draped  from  head 
to  foot  in  a  costume  minutely  and  scrupulously 
studied  from  that  of  ancient  Egypt."  In  fact, 
the  body  and  limbs  of  the  statue  are  so  closely 
shrouded  as  to  deprive  the  work  of  that  sense 
of  freedom  of  action  and  royal  abandon  which 
greets  us  in  Shakespeare's  and  Plutarch's  "Cleo 
patra."  Story  might  have  taken  a  lesson  from 
Titian's  matchless  "Cleopatra"  in  the  Cassel 
gallery,  or  from  Marc  Antonio's  small  wood 
cut  of  Raphael's  "Cleopatra." 

Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  of  Craw 
ford  that  he  was  the  finest  plastic  genius  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race.  His  technique  may  not  have 
been  equal  to  Flaxman's  or  St.  Gaudens',  but 
his  designs  have  more  of  grandeur  than  the 
former,  and  he  is  more  original  than  the  latter. 
There  are  faults  of  modelling  in  his  "Orpheus," 
and  its  attitude  resembles  that  of  the  eldest 
son  of  Niobe  in  the  Florentine  gallery, — although 
the  Niobe  youth  looks  upward  and  Orpheus  is 
peering  into  darkness, — its  features  are  rather 

340 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

too  pretty;  but  the  statue  has  exactly  what 
Powers'  "Greek  Slave"  lacks,  a  definite  motive,— 
that  of  an  earnest  seeker, — which  pervades  it 
from  head  to  foot ;  and  it  is  no  imaginary  pathos 
that  we  feel  in  its  presence.  There  is,  at  least, 
no  imitation  of  the  antique  in  Crawford's 
"Beethoven,"  for  its  conception,  the  listening  to 
internal  harmonies,  would  never  have  occurred 
to  a  Greek  or  a  Roman.  Even  Hawthorne 
admits  Crawford's  skill  in  the  treatment  of 
drapery;  and  this  is  very  important,  for  it  is 
in  his  drapery  quite  as  much  as  in  the  nude 
that  we  recognize  the  superiority  of  Michel 
Angelo  to  Raphael;  and  the  folds  of  Bee 
thoven's  mantle  are  as  rhythmical  as  his  own 
harmonies.  The  features  lack  something  of 
firmness,  but  it  is  altogether  a  statue  in  the 
grand  manner. 

Hawthorne  is  rather  too  exacting  in  his  re 
quirements  of  modern  sculptors.  Warrington 
Wood,  who  commenced  life  as  a  marble- worker, 
always  employed  Italian  workmen  to  carve  his 
statues,  although  he  was  perfectly  able  to  do 
it  himself,  and  always  put  on  the  finishing 
touches, — as  I  presume  they  all  do.  Bronze 
statues  are  finished  with  a  file,  and  of  course 
do  not  require  any  knowledge  of  the  chisel. 

In  regard  to  the  imitation  of  antique  atti 
tudes,  there  has  certainly  been  too  much  of  it, 
as  Hawthorne  supposes;  but  the  Greeks  them 
selves  were  given  to  this  form  of  plagiarism, 
and  even  Praxiteles  sometimes  adopted  the 
motives  of  his  predecessors;  but  Hawthorne 

341 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

praises  Powers,  Story,  and  Harriet  Hosmer 
above  their  merits. 

The  whole  brotherhood  of  artists  and  their 
critical  friends  might  rise  up  against  me,  if  I 
were  to  support  Hawthorne's  condemnation 
of  modern  Venuses,  and  "the  guilty  glimpses 
stolen  at  hired  models."  They  are  not  neces 
sarily  guilty  glimpses.  To  an  experienced  artist 
the  customary  study  from  a  naked  figure,  male 
or  female,  is  little  more  than  what  a  low-necked 
dress  at  a  party  would  be  to  many  others. 
Yet  the  instinct  of  the  age  shrinks  from  this 
exposure.  We  can  make  pretty  good  Venuses, 
but  we  cannot  look  at  them  through  the  same 
mental  and  moral  atmosphere  as  the  contem 
poraries  of  Scopas,  or  even  with  the  same  eyes 
that  Michel  Angelo  saw  them.  We  feel  the 
difference  between  a  modern  Venus  and  an 
ancient  one.  There  is  a  statue  in  the  Vatican 
of  a  Roman  emperor,  of  which  every  one  says 
that  it  ought  to  wear  clothes;  and  the  reason 
is  because  the  face  has  such  a  modern  look. 
A  raving  Bacchante  may  be  a  good  acquisition 
to  an  art  museum,  but  it  is  out  of  place  in  a  public 
library.  A  female  statue  requires  more  or  less 
drapery  to  set  off  the  outlines  of  the  figure  and 
to  give  it  dignity.  We  feel  this  even  in  the  finest 
Greek  work — like  the  ''Venus  of  Cnidos." 

In  this  matter  Hawthorne  certainly  exposes 
his  Puritanic  education,  and  he  also  places  too 
high  a  value  on  the  carving  of  button-holes  and 
shoestrings  by  Italian  workmen.  Such  things 
are  the  fag-ends  of  statuary. 

342 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

His  judgment,  however,  is  clear  and  convinc 
ing  in  regard  to  the  tinted  Eves  and  Venuses 
of  Gibson.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  ancient 
practice  in  this  respect,  Gibson's  experiment 
proved  a  failure.  Nobody  likes  those  statues; 
and  no  other  sculptor  has  since  followed  Gib 
son's  example.  The  tinting  of  statues  by  the 
Greeks  did  not  commence  until  the  time  of 
Aristotle,  and  does  not  seem  to  have  been  very 
general.  Their  object  evidently  was,  not  so 
much  to  imitate  flesh  as  to  tone  down  the 
crystalline  glare  of  the  new  marble.  Pausanias 
speaks  of  a  statue  in  Arcadia,  the  drapery  of 
which  was  painted  with  vermilion,  "so  as  to  look 
very  gay."  This  was  of  course  the  consequence 
of  a  late  and  degraded  taste.  That  traces  of 
paint  should  have  been  discovered  on  Greek 
temples  is  no  evidence  that  the  marble  was 
painted  when  they  were  first  built. 

It  may  be  suspected  that  Hawthorne  was  one 
of  the  very  few  who  have  seen  the  "Venus  de' 
Medici "  and  recognized  the  true  significance 
of  the  statue.  The  vast  majority  of  visitors  to 
the  Uffizi  only  see  in  it  the  type  of  a  perfectly 
symmetrical  woman  bashfully  posing  for  her 
likeness  in  marble,  but  Hawthorne's  perception 
in  it  went  much  beyond  that,  and  the  fact  that 
he  attempts  no  explanation  of  its  motive  is 
in  accordance  with  the  present  theory.  He 
also  noticed  that  statues  had  sometimes  ex 
ercised  a  potent  spell  over  him,  and  at  others 
a  very  slight  influence. 

Froude  says  that  a  man's  modesty  is  the  best 

343 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

part  of  him.  Notice  that,  ye  strugglers  for 
preferment,  and  how  beautifully  modest  Haw 
thorne  is,  when  he  writes  in  his  Florentine 
diary : 

"In  a  year's  time,  with  the  advantage  of 
access  to  this  magnificent  gallery,  I  think  I 
might  come  to  have  some  little  knowledge  of 
pictures.  At  present  I  still  know  nothing  ; 
but  am  glad  to  find  myself  capable,  at  least, 
of  loving  one  picture  better  than  another.  I 
am  sensible,  however,  that  a  process  is  going  on, 
and  has  been  ever  since  I  came  to  Italy,  that 
puts  me  in  a  state  to  see  pictures  with  less  toil, 
and  more  pleasure,  and  makes  me  more  fastid 
ious,  yet  more  sensible  of  beauty  where  I  saw 
none  before. " 

Hawthorne  belongs  to  the  same  class  of 
amateur  critics  as  Shelley  and  Goethe,  who, 
even  if  their  opinions  cannot  always  be  ac 
cepted  as  final,  illuminate  the  subject  with  the 
radiance  of  genius  and  have  an  equal  value 
with  the  most  experienced  connoisseurs. 


The  return  of  the  Hawthornes  to  Rome 
through  Tuscany  was  even  more  interesting 
than  their  journey  to  Florence  in  the  spring, 
and  they  enjoyed  the  inestimable  advantage 
of  a  vetturino  who  would  seem  to  have  been  the 
Sir  Philip  Sidney  of  his  profession,  a  compen 
dium  of  human  excellences.  There  are  such 
men,  though  rarely  met  with,  and  we  may  trust 
Hawthorne's  word  that  Constantino  Bacci  was 

344 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

one  of  them;  not  only  a  skilful  driver,  but  a 
generous  provider,  honest,  courteous,  kindly, 
and  agreeable.  They  went  first  to  Siena,  where 
they  were  entertained  for  a  week  or  more 
by  the  versatile  Mr.  Story,  and  where  Haw 
thorne  wrote  an  eloquent  description  of  the 
cathedral;  then  over  the  mountain  pass  where 
Radicofani  nestles  among  the  iron-browed  crags 
above  the  clouds;  past  the  malarious  Lake  of 
Bolsena,  scene  of  the  miracle  which  Raphael  has 
commemorated  in  the  Vatican;  through  Viterbo 
and  Sette  Vene;  and  finally,  on  October  16,  into 
Rome,  through  the  Porta'  del  Popolo,  designed 
by  Michel  Angelo  in  his  massive  style, — Do 
na  ti's  comet  flaming  before  them  every  night. 
Thompson,  the  portrait  painter,  had  already 
secured  a  furnished  house,  No.  68  Piazza  Poli, 
for  the  Hawthornes,  to  which  they  went  im 
mediately. 

Since  the  death  of  Julius  Caesar,  comets  have 
always  been  looked  upon  as  the  forerunners 
of  pestilence  and  war,  but  wars  are  sometimes 
blessings,  and  Dona  ti's  discovery  proved  a 
harbinger  of  good  to  Italy, — but  to  the  Haw 
thornes,  a  prediction  of  evil.  Continually  in 
Hawthorne's  Italian  journal  we  meet  with 
references  to  the  Roman  malaria,  as  if  it  were 
a  subject  that  occupied  his  thoughts,  and  no 
where  is  this  more  common  than  during  the 
re  turn- journey  from  Florence.  Did  it  occur 
to  him  that  the  lightning  might  strike  in  his 
own  house?  No  sensible  American  now  would 
take  his  children  to  Rome  unless  for  a  very 

345 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

brief  visit;  and  yet  William  Story  brought  up 
his  family  there  with  excellent  success,  so  far 
as  health  was  concerned. 

We  can  believe  that  Hawthorne  took 
every  possible  precaution,  so  far  as  he  knew, 
but  in  spite  of  that  on  November  i  his  eldest 
daughter  was  seized  with  Roman  fever,  and 
for  six  weeks  thereafter  lay  trembling  be 
tween  life  and  death,  so  that  it  seemed  as  if  a 
feather  might  turn  the  balance. 

She  does  not  appear  to  have  been  imprudent. 
Her  father  believed  that  the  "old  hag"  breathed 
upon  her  while  she  was  with  her  mother,  who 
was  sketching  in  the  Palace  of  the  Caesars;  but 
the  Palatine  Hill  is  on  high  ground,  with  a 
foundation  of  solid  masonry,  and  was  guarded 
by  French  soldiers,  and  it  would  have  been 
difficult  to  find  a  more  cleanly  spot  in  the  city. 
A  German  count,  who  lived  in  a  villa  on  the 
Caelian  Hill,  close  by,  considered  his  residence 
one  of  the  most  healthful  in  Rome.  Miss  Una 
had  a  passionate  attachment  for  the  capital 
of  the  ancient  world;  and  it  seems  as  if  the 
evil  spirit  of  the  place  had  seized  upon  her, 
as  the  Ice  Maiden  is  supposed  to  entrap  chamois 
hunters  in  the  Alps. 

One  of  the  evils  attendant  on  sickness  in  a 
foreign  country  is,  the  uncertainty  in  regard 
to  a  doctor,  and  this  naturally  leads  to  a  dis 
trust  and  suspicion  of  the  one  that  is  employed. 
Even  so  shrewd  a  man  as  Bismarck  fell  into 
the  hands  of  a  charlatan  at  St.  Petersburg  and 
suffered  severely  in  consequence.  Hawthorne 

346 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

either  had  a  similar  experience,  or,  what  came 
to  the  same  thing,  believed  that  he  did.  He 
considered  himself  obliged  to  change  doctors 
for  his  daughter,  and  this  added  to  his  care 
and  anxiety.  During  the  next  four  months 
he  wrote  not  a  word  in  his  journal  (or  else 
where,  so  far  as  we  know),  and  he  visibly  aged 
before  his  wife's  eyes.  He  went  to  walk  on 
occasion  with  Story  or  Thompson,  but  it  was 
merely  for  the  preservation  of  his  owrn  health. 
His  thoughts  were  always  in  his  daughter's 
chamber,  and  this  was  so  strongly  marked  upon 
his  face  that  any  one  could  read  it.  Toward 
the  Ides  of  March,  Miss  Una  was  sufficiently 
improved  to  take  a  short  look  at  the  carnival, 
but  it  was  two  months  later  before  she  was 
in  a  condition  to  travel,  and  neither  she  nor  her 
father  ever  wholly  recovered  from  the  effects 
of  this  sad  experience. 


347 


CHAPTER  XVI 
"THE   MARBLE   FAUN":    1859-1860 

WHAT  the  Roman  carnival  was  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago,  when  the  Italian  princes  poured 
out  their  wealth  upon  it,  and  when  it  served 
as  a  medium  for  the  communication  of  lovers 
as  well  as  for  social  and  political  intrigue, 
which  sometimes  resulted  in  conflicts  like  those 
of  the  Montagues  and  Capulets,  can  only  be 
imagined.  Goethe  witnessed  it  from  a  balcony 
in  the  Corso,  and  his  carnival  in  the  second 
part  of  "Faust"  was  worked  up  from  notes 
taken  on  that  occasion;  but  it  is  so  highly 
poetized  that  little  can  be  determined  from 
it,  except  as  a  portion  of  the  drama.  By 
Hawthorne's  time  the  aristocratic  Italians 
had  long  since  given  up  their  favorite  holi 
day  to  English  and  American  travellers,  — 
crowded  out,  as  it  were,  by  the  superiority  of 
money;  and  since  the  advent  of  Victor  Em 
manuel,  the  carnival  has  become  so  demo 
cratic  that  you  are  more  likely  to  encounter 
your  landlady's  daughter  there  than  any  more 
distinguished  person.  Hawthorne's  description 
of  it  in  "The  Marble  Faun"  is  not  overdrawn, 
and  is  one  of  the  happiest  passages  in  the 
book. 

The  carnival  of  1859  was  an  exceptionally 
brilliant  one.  The  Prince  of  Wales  attended 

348 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

it  with  a  suite  of  young  English  nobles,  who, 
always  decorous  and  polite  on  public  occasions, 
nevertheless  infused  great  spirit  into  the  pro 
ceedings.  Sumner  and  Motley  were  there,  and 
Motley  rented  a  balcony  in  a  palace,  to  which 
the  Hawthornes  received  general  and  repeated 
invitations.  On  March  7,  Miss  Una  was  driven 
through  the  Corso  in  a  barouche,  and  the  Prince 
of  Wales  threw  her  a  bouquet,  probably  recog 
nizing  her  father,  who  was  with  her;  and  to 
prove  his  good  intentions  he  threw  her  another, 
when  her  carriage  returned  from  the  Piazza 
del  Popolo.  The  present  English  sovereign 
has  always  been  noted  for  a  sort  of  journalistic 
interest  in  prominent  men  of  letters,  science, 
and  public  affairs,  and  it  is  likely  that  he  was 
better  informed  in  regard  to  the  Hawthornes 
than  they  imagined.  Hawthorne  himself  was 
too  much  subdued  by  his  recent  trial  to  enter 
into  the  spirit  of  the  carnival,  even  with  a  heart 
much  relieved  from  anxiety,  but  he  sometimes 
appeared  in  the  Motleys'  balcony,  and  some 
times  went  along  the  narrow  sidewalk  of  the 
Corso,  "for  an  hour  or  so  among  the  people, 
just  on  the  edges  of  the  fun."  Sumner  invited 
Mrs.  Hawthorne  to  take  a  stroll  and  see  pictures 
with  him,  from  which  she  returned  delighted 
with  his  criticisms  and  erudition. 

A  few  days  later  Franklin  Pierce  suddenly 
appeared  at  No.  68  Piazza  Poli,  with  that  shadow 
on  his  face  which  was  never  wholly  to  leave 
it.  The  man  who  fears  God  and  keeps  his  com 
mandments  will  never  feel  quite  alone  in  the 

349 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

world ;  but  for  the  man  who  lives  on  popularity, 
what  will  there  be  left  when  that  forsakes  him? 
Hawthorne  was  almost  shocked  at  the  change 
in  his  friend's  appearance;  not  only  at  his  gray 
hair  and  wrinkled  brow,  but  at  the  change  in 
his  voice,  and  at  a  certain  lack  of  substance  in 
him,  as  if  the  personal  magnetism  had  gone  out 
of  him.  Hawrthorne  went  to  walk  with  him, 
and  tried  to  encourage  him  by  suggesting 
another  term  of  the  presidency,  but  this  did 
not  help  much,  for  even  Pierce's  own  State  had 
deserted  him,  —  a  fact  of  which  Hawthorne 
may  not  have  been  aware.  The  companionship 
of  his  old  friend,  however,  and  the  manifold 
novelty  of  Rome  itself,  somewhat  revived  the 
ex-President,  as  may  be  imagined ;  and  a  month 
later  he  left  for  Venice,  in  better  spirits  than 
he  came. 

They  celebrated  the  Ides  of  March  by  going 
to  see  Harriet  Hosmer's  statue  of  Zenobia, 
which  was  afterward  exhibited  in  America. 
Hawthorne  immediately  detected  its  resem 
blance  to  the  antique, — the  figure  was  in  fact 
a  pure  plagiarism  from  the  smaller  statue  of 
Ceres  in  the  Vatican, — but  Miss  Hosmer  suc 
ceeded  in  giving  the  face  an  expression  of 
injured  and  sorrowing  majesty,  which  Haw 
thorne  was  equally  ready  to  appreciate. 

On  this  second  visit  to  Rome  he  became 
acquainted  with  a  sculptor,  whose  name  is  not 
given,  but  who  criticised  Hiram  Powers  with  a 
rather  suspicious  severity.  He  would  not  allow 
Powers  "to  be  an  artist  at  all,  or  to  know  any- 

350 


O'lHE 

Uh'IVERG'TY 
X.  OF  >j 

NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

thing  of  the  laws  of  art,  although  acknowledging 
him  to  be  a  great  bust-maker,  and  to  have  put 
together  the  "  Greek  Slave"  and  the  "  Fisher- 
Boy"  very  ingeniously.  "The  latter,  however 
(he  says) ,  is  copied  from  the  Spinario  in  the  Trib 
une  of  the  Uffizi;  and  the  former  made  up  of 
beauties  that  had  no  reference  to  one  another; 
and  he  affirms  that  Powers  is  ready  to  sell,  and 
has  actually  sold,  the  '  Greek  Slave,'  limb  by 
limb,  dismembering  it  by  reversing  the  process 
of  putting  it  together.  Powers  knows  nothing 
scientifically  of  the  human  frame,  and  only 
succeeds  in  representing  it,  as  a  natural  bone- 
doctor  succeeds  in  setting  a  dislocated  limb,  by 
a  happy  accident  or  special  providence."  * 

We  may  judge,  from  "the  style,  the  matter, 
and  the  drift"  of  this  discourse,  that  it  emanated 
from  the  same  sculptor  who  is  mentioned,  in 
"Nathaniel  Hawthorne  and  His  Wife,"  as 
having  traduced  Margaret  Fuller  and  her  hus 
band  Count  Ossoli.  As  Tennyson  says,  "A  lie 
that  is  half  a  truth  is  ever  the  blackest  of  lies," 
and  this  fellow  would  seem  to  have  been  an 
adept  in  un veracious  exaggeration.  It  is  re 
markable  that  Hawthorne  should  have  given 
serious  attention  to  such  a  man ;  but  an  English 
critic  said  in  regard  to  this  same  incident  that 
if  Hawthorne  had  been  a  more  communicative 
person,  if  he  had  talked  freely  to  a  larger  number 
of  people,  he  would  not  have  been  so  easily 
prejudiced  by  those  few  with  whom  he  was 


*  Italian  Note-book,   483. 
35i 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

chiefly  intimate.  To  which  it  could  be  added, 
that  he  might  also  have  taken  broader  views  in 
regard  to  public  affairs. 

Hawthorne  was  fortunate  to  have  been  present 
at  the  discovery  of  the  St.  Petersburg  "Venus," 
the  twin  sister  of  the  "Venus  de'  Medici," 
which  was  dug  up  in  a  vineyard  outside  the 
Porta  Portese.  The  proprietor  of  the  vineyard, 
who  made  his  fortune  at  a  stroke  by  the  dis 
covery,  happened  to  select  the  site  for  a  new 
building  over  the  buried  ruins  of  an  ancient 
villa,  and  the  "Venus"  was  discovered  in  what 
appeared  to  Hawthorne  as  an  old  Roman 
bath-room.  The  statue  was  in  more  perfect 
preservation  than  the  "Venus  de'  Medici," 
both  of  whose  arms  have  been  restored,  and 
Hawthorne  noticed  that  the  head  was  larger  and 
the  face  more  characteristic,  with  wide-open 
eyes  and  a  more  confident  expression.  He  was 
one  of  the  very  few  who  saw  it  before  it  was 
transported  to  St.  Petersburg,  and  a  thorough 
artistic  analysis  of  it  is  still  one  of  the  deside 
rata.  The  difference  in  expression,  however, 
would  seem  to  be  in  favor  of  the  "Venus  de' 
Medici,"  as  more  in  accordance  with  the  ruling 
motive  of  the  figure. 

Miss  Una  Hawthorne  had  not  sufficiently 
recovered  to  travel  until  the  last  of  May,  when 
they  all  set  forth  northward  by  way  of  Genoa 
and  Marseilles,  in  which  latter  place  we  find 
them  on  the  28th,  enjoying  the  comfort  and 
elegance  of  a  good  French  hotel.  Thence  they 
proceeded  to  Avignon,  but  did  not  find  much 

352 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

to  admire  there  except  the  Rhone;  so  they 
continued  to  Geneva,  the  most  pleasant,  home 
like  resting  place  in  Europe,  but  quite  deficient 
in  other  attractions. 

It  seems  as  if  Hawthorne's  Roman  friends 
were  somewhat  remiss  in  not  giving  him  better 
advice  in  regard  to  European  travelling.  At 
Geneva  he  was  within  a  stone's  throw  of 
Chamounix,  and  hardly  more  than  that  of 
Strasburg  Cathedral,  and  yet  he  visited  neither. 
Why  did  he  go  out  of  his  way  to  see  so  little 
and  to  miss  so  much?  He  went  across  the  lake 
to  visit  Lausanne  and  the  Castle  of  Chillon,  and 
he  was  more  than  astonished  at  the  view  of  the 
Pennine  Alps  from  the  deck  of  the  steamer. 
He  had  never  imagined  anything  like  it;  and  he 
might  have  said  the  same  if  he  had  visited 
Cologne  Cathedral.  Instead  of  that,  however, 
he  hurried  through  France  again,  with  the 
intention  of  sailing  for  America  the  middle  of 
July;  but  after  reaching  London  he  concluded 
to  remain  another  year  in  England,  to  write 
his  ''Romance  of  Monte  Beni,"  and  obtain  an 
English  copyright  for  it. 

He  left  Geneva  on  June  15,  and  as  he  turned 
his  face  northward,  he  felt  that  Henry  Bright 
and  Francis  Bennoch  were  his  only  real  friends 
in  Great  Britain.  There  could  hardly  have 
been  a  stronger  contrast  than  these  two.  Bright 
was  tall,  slender,  rather  pale  for  an  Englishman, 
grave  and  philosophical.  Bennoch  was  short, 
plump,  lively  and  jovial,  with  a  ready  fund  of 
humor  much  in  the  style  of  Dickens,  with  whom 

23  353 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

he  was  personally  acquainted.  Yet  Haw 
thorne  recognized  that  Bright  and  Bennoch 
liked  him  for  what  he  was,  in  and  of  himself, 
and  not  for  his  celebrity  alone. 

Bright  was  in  London  when  Hawthorne 
reached  there,  and  proposed  that  they  should 
go  together  to  call  on  Sumner,*  who  had  been 
cured  from  the  effects  of  Brooks 's  assault  by 
an  equally  heroic  treatment;  but  Hawthorne 
objected  that  as  neither  of  them  was  Lord 
Chancellor,  Sumner  would  not  be  likely  to  pay 
them  much  attention;  to  which  Bright  replied, 
that  Sumner  had  been  very  kind  to  him  in 
America,  and  they  accordingly  went.  Sumner 
was  kind  to  thousands, — the  kindest  as  well  as 
the  most  upright  man  of  his  time, — and  no  one 
in  America,  except  Longfellow,  appreciated 
Hawthorne  so  well;  but  he  was  the  champion 
of  the  anti-slavery  movement  and  the  inveterate 
opponent  of  President  Pierce.  I  suppose  a  man's 
mind  cannot  help  being  colored  somewhat  by 
such  conditions  and  influences. 

Hawthorne  wished  for  a  quiet,  healthful 
place,  where  he  could  write  his  romance  without 
the  disturbances  that  are  incident  to  celebrity, 
and  his  friends  recommended  Redcar,  on  the 
eastern  coast  of  Yorkshire,  a  town  that  other 
wise  Americans  would  not  have  heard  of. 
He  went  there  about  the  middle  of  July,  remain 
ing  until  the  5th  of  October,  but  of  his  life  there 
we  know  nothing  except  that  he  must  have 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  ii.  223. 
354 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

worked  assiduously,  for  in  that  space  of  time 
he  nearly  finished  a  book  containing  almost 
twice  as  many  pages  as  "The  Scarlet  Letter." 
Meanwhile  Mrs.  Hawthorne  entertained  the 
children  and  kept  them  from  interfering  with 
their  father  (in  his  small  cottage),  by  making 
a  collection  of  sea-mosses,  which  Una  and 
Julian  gathered  at  low  tides,  and  which  their 
mother  afterward  dried  and  preserved  on  paper. 
On  October  4th  Una  Hawthorne  wrote  to  her 
aunt,  Elizabeth  Peabody: 

"Our  last  day  in  Redcar,  and  a  most  lovely  one  it  is. 
The  sea  seems  to  reproach  us  for  leaving  it.  But  I  am  glad 
we  are  going,  for  I  feel  so  homesick  that  I  want  constant 
change  to  divert  my  thoughts.  How  troublesome  feelings 
and  affections  are."  * 

One  can  see  that  it  was  a  pleasant  place 
even  after  the  days  had  begun  to  shorten, 
which  they  do  very  rapidly  in  northern  England. 
From  Redcar,  Hawthorne  went  to  Leamington, 
where  he  finished  his  romance  about  the  first  of 
December,  and  remained  until  some  time  in 
March,  living  quietly  and  making  occasional 
pedestrian  tours  to  neighboring  towns.  He 
was  particularly  fond  of  the  walk  to  Warwick 
Castle,  and  of  standing  on  the  bridge  which 
crosses  the  Avon,  and  gazing  at  the  walls  of 
the  Castle,  as  they  rise  above  the  trees — "as 
fine  a  piece  of  English  scenery  as  exists  any 
where  ;  the  gray  towers  and  long  line  of  windows 
of  the  lordly  castle,  with  a  picturesquely  varied 


*  Mrs.  Lathrop,  35  a. 

355 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

outline;  ancient  strength,  a  little  softened  by 
decay."  It  is  a  view  that  has  often  been 
sketched,  painted  and  engraved. 

The  romance  was  written,  but  had  to  be 
revised,  the  least  pleasant  portion  of  an  author's 
duties, — unless  he  chooses  to  make  the  index 
himself.  This  required  five  or  six  weeks  longer, 
after  which  Hawthorne  went  to  London  and 
arranged  for  its  publication  with  Smith  & 
Elder,  who  agreed  to  bring  it  out  in  three  vol 
umes — although  two  would  have  been  quite 
sufficient;  but  according  to  English  ideas,  the 
length  of  a  work  of  fiction  adds  to  its  importance. 
Unfortunately,  Smith  &  Elder  also  desired  to 
cater  to  the  more  prosaic  class  of  readers  by 
changing  the  name  of  the  romance  from  "The 
Marble  Faun"  to  "Transformation,"  and  they 
appear  to  have  done  this  without  consulting 
Hawthorne's  wishes  in  the  matter.  It  was 
simply  squeezing  the  title  dry  of  all  poetic 
suggestions;  and  it  would  have  been  quite  as 
appropriate  to  change  the  name  of  "The  Scarlet 
Letter"  to  "The  Clergyman's  Penance,"  or  to 
call  "The  Blithedale  Romance"  "The  Suicide 
of  a  Jilt."  If  Smith  &  Elder  considered  "The 
Marble  Faun"  too  recondite  a  title  for  the 
English  public,  what  better  name  could  they 
have  hit  upon  than  "The  Romance  of  Monte 
Beni"?  Would  not  the  Count  of  Monte  Beni 
be  a  cousin  Italian,  as  it  were,  to  the  Count  of 
Monte  Cristo?  We  are  thankful  to  observe  that 
when  Hawthorne  published  the  book  in  America, 
he  had  his  own  way  in  regard  to  this  point. 

356 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

It  was  now  that  a  new  star  was  rising  in  the 
literary  firmament,  not  of  the  "  shoo  ting"  or 
transitory  species,  and  the  genius  of  Marian 
Evans  (George  Eliot)  was  casting  its  genial 
penetrating  radiance  over  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States.  She  was  as  difficult  a  person 
to  meet  with  as  Hawthorne  himself,  and  they 
never  saw  one  another;  but  a  friend  of  Mr. 
Bennoch,  who  lived  at  Coventry,  invited  the 
Hawthornes  there  in  the  first  week  of  February 
to  meet  Bennoch  and  others,  and  Marian 
Evans  would  seem  to  have  been  the  chief  subject 
of  conversation  at  the  table  that  evening. 
What  Hawthorne  gathered  concerning  her  on 
that  occasion  he  has  preserved  in  this  compact 
and  discriminating  statement : 

"Miss  Evans  (who  wrote  'Adam  Bede') 
was  the  daughter  of  a  steward,  and  gained  her 
exact  knowledge  of  English  rural  life  by  the 
connection  with  which  this  origin  brought  her 
with  the  farmers.  She  was  entirely  self-educated, 
and  has  made  herself  an  admirable  scholar  in 
classical  as  well  as  in  modern  languages.  Those 
who  knew  her  had  always  recognized  her  won 
derful  endowments,  and  only  watched  to  see 
in  what  way  they  would  develop  themselves. 
She  is  a  person  of  the  simplest  manners  and 
character,  amiable  and  unpretending,  and 
Mrs.  B—  -  spoke  of  her  with  great  affection 
and  respect. " 

There  is  actually  more  of  the  real  George 
Eliot  in  this  summary  than  in  the  three  volumes 
of  her  biography  by  Mr.  Cross. 

357 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Thorwaldsen's  well-known  simile  in  regard  to 
the  three  stages  of  sculpture,  the  life,  the  death 
and  the  resurrection,  also  has  its  application 
to  literature.  The  manuscript  is  the  birth  of 
an  author's  work,  and  its  revision  always  seems 
like  taking  the  life  out  of  it ;  but  when  the  proof 
comes,  it  is  like  a  new  birth,  and  he  sees  his 
design  for  the  first  time  in  its  true  proportions. 
Then  he  goes  over  it  as  the  sculptor  does  his 
newly-cast  bronze,  smoothing  the  rough  places 
and  giving  it  those  final  touches  which  serve 
to  make  its  expression  clearer.  Hawthorne 
was  never  more  to  be  envied  than  while  correct 
ing  the  proof  of  "The  Marble  Faun"  at  Leam 
ington.  The  book  was  given  to  the  public  at 
Easter-time;  and  there  seems  to  have  been 
only  one  person  in  England  that  appreciated 
it,  even  as  a  work  of  art — John  Lothrop  Motley. 
The  most  distinguished  reviewers  wholly  failed 
to  catch  the  significance  of  it;  and  even  Henry 
Bright,  while  warmly  admiring  the  story,  ex 
pressed  a  dissatisfaction  at  the  conclusion  of 
it, — although  he  could  have  found  a  notable 
precedent  for  that  in  Goethe's  "Wilhelm 
Meister."  The  Saturday  Review,  a  publication 
similar  in  tone  to  the  New  York  Nation,  said 
of  ' '  Transformation : "  * 

"A  mystery  is  set  before  us  to  unriddle;  at  the  end 
the  author  turns  round  and  asks  us  what  is  the  good 
of  solving  it.  That  the  impression  of  emptiness  and  un- 
meaningness  thus  produced  is  in  itself  a  blemish  to  the 
work  no  one  can  deny.  Mr.  Hawthorne  really  trades  upon 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  ii.  250. 
358 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

the  honesty  of  other  writers.  We  feel  a  sort  of  interest  in 
the  story,  slightly  and  sketchily  as  it  is  told,  because 
our  experience  of  other  novels  leads  us  to  assume  that, 
when  an  author  pretends  to  have  a  plot,  he  has  one." 

The  Art  Journal  said  of  it :  * 

"We  are  not  to  accept  this  book  as  a  story;  in  that 
respect  it  is  grievously  deficient.  The  characters  are 
utterly  untrue  to  nature  and  to  fact;  they  speak,  all 
and  always,  the  sentiments  of  the  author;  their  words  also 
are  his ;  there  is  no  one  of  them  for  which  the  world  has 
furnished  a  model." 

And  the  London  Athenceum  said:f 

"To  Mr.  Hawthorne  truth  always  seems  to  arrive  through 
the  medium  of  the  imagination.  .  .  .  His  hero,  the  Count 
of  Monte  Beni,  would  never  have  lived  had  not  the  Faun 
of  Praxiteles  stirred  the  author's  admiration.  .  .  .  The 
other  characters,  Mr.  Hawthorne  must  bear  to  be  told, 
are  not  new  to  a  tale  of  his.  Miriam,  the  mysterious, 
with  her  hideous  tormentor,  was  indicated  in  the  Zeno- 
bia  of  'The  Blithedale  Romance.'  Hilda,  the  pure  and 
innocent,  is  own  cousin  to  Phoebe  in  'The  House  of  the 
Seven  Gables'." 

If  the  reviewer  is  to  be  reviewed,  it  is  not 
too  much  to  designate  these  criticisms  as  miser 
able  failures.  They  are  not  even  well  written. 
Henry  Bright  seemed  to  be  thankful  that  they 
were  no  worse,  for  he  wrote  to  Hawthorne: 
"I  am  glad  that  sulky  Athenaum  was  so  civil; 
for  they  are  equally  powerful  and  unprincipled." 
The  writer  in  the  Athen&um  evidently  belonged 
to  that  class  of  domineering  critics  who  have 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  ii.  249. 
t  Ibid.,  ii.  244. 

359 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

no  literary  standing,  but  who,  like  bankers' 
clerks,  arrogate  to  themselves  all  the  importance 
of  the  establishment  with  which  they  are  con 
nected.  Fortunately,  there  are  few  such  in 
America.  No  keen-witted  reader  would  ever 
confound  the  active,  rosy,  domestic  Phoebe 
Pyncheon  with  the  dreamy,  sensitive,  and 
strongly  subjective  Hilda  of  "  The  Marble  Faun ; " 
and  Hawthorne  might  have  sent  a  communi 
cation  to  the  Athen&um  to  refresh  the  reviewer's 
memory,  for  it  was  not  Zenobia  in  "The  Blithe- 
dale  Romance"  who  was  dogged  by  a  mysteri 
ous  persecutor,  but  her  half-sister — Priscilla. 
Shakespeare's  Beatrice  and  his  Rosalind  are 
more  alike  (for  Brandes  supposes  them  to  have 
been  taken  from  the  same  model)  than  Zenobia 
and  Miriam;  and  the  difference  between  the 
persecutors  of  Priscilla  and  Miriam,  as  well  as 
their  respective  methods,  is  world- wide;  but 
there  are  none  so  blind  as  those  who  are  en 
veloped  in  the  turbid  medium  of  their  self- 
conceit. 

The  pure-hearted,  chivalrous  Motley  read 
these  reviews,  and  wrote  to  Hawthorne  a 
vindication  of  his  work,  which  must  have  seemed 
to  him  like  a  broad  belt  of  New  England  sun 
shine  in  the  midst  of  the  London  fog.  In 
reference  to  its  disparagement  by  so-called 
authorities,  Motley  said :  * 

"I  have  said  a  dozen  times  that  nobody  can  write 
English  but  you.  With  regard  to  the  story  which  has  been 


*  Mrs.  Lathrop,  408. 
36o 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

slightingly  criticised,  I  can  only  say  that  to  me  it  is  quite 
satisfactory.  I  like  those  shadowy,  weird,  fantastic,  Haw- 
thornesque  shapes  flitting  through  the  golden  gloom  which 
is  the  atmosphere  of  the  book.  I  like  the  misty  way  in 
which  the  story  is  indicated  rather  than  revealed.  The 
outlines  are  quite  definite  enough,  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end,  to  those  who  have  imagination  enough  to  follow 
you  in  your  airy  flights;  and  to  those  who  complain — 

"I  beg  your  pardon  for  such  profanation,  but  it  really 
moves  my  spleen  that  people  should  wish  to  bring  down 
the  volatile  figures  of  your  romance  to  the  level  of  an  every 
day  novel.  It  is  exactly  the  romantic  atmosphere  of  the  book 
in  which  I  revel." 

The  calm  face  of  Motley,  with  his  classic 
features,  rises  before  us  as  we  read  this,  illumined 
as  it  were  by  "the  mild  radiance  of  a  hidden 
sun."  He  also  had  known  what  it  was  to  be 
disparaged  by  English  periodicals;  and  if  it 
had  not  been  for  Froude's  spirited  assertion  in 
his  behalf,  his  history  of  the  Dutch  Republic 
might  not  have  met  with  the  celebrity  it  de 
served.  He  was  aware  of  the  difference  between 
a  Hawthorne  and  a  Reade  or  a  Trollope,  and 
knew  how  unfair  it  wrould  be  to  judge  Haw 
thorne  even  by  the  same  standard  as  Thackeray. 
He  does  not  touch  in  this  letter  on  the  phil 
osophical  character  of  the  work,  although  that 
must  have  been  evident  to  him,  for  he  had  said 
enough  without  it;  but  one  could  wish  that  he 
had  printed  the  above  statement  over  his  own 
name,  in  some  English  journal. 

American  reviewers  were  equally  puzzled 
by  "The  Marble  Eaun,"  and,  although  it  was 
generally  praised  here,  the  literary  critics  treated 
it  in  rather  a  cautious  manner,  as  if  it  contained 

361 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

material  of  a  dangerous  nature.  The  North 
American,  which  should  have  devoted  five  or 
six  pages  to  it,  gave  it  less  than  one;  praising 
it  in  a  conventional  and  rather  unsympathetic 
tone.  Longfellow  read  it,  and  wrote  in  his 
diary,  "A  wonderful  book;  but  with  the  old, 
dull  pain  in  it  that  runs  through  all  Hawthorne's 
writings."  There  was  always  something  of 
this  dull  pain  in  the  expression  of  Hawthorne's 
face. 

ANALYSIS  OF  "THE  MARBLE  FAUN" 

It  is  like  a  picture,  or  a  succession  of  pictures, 
painted  in  what  the  Italians  call  the  sfumato, 
or  "smoky"  manner.  The  book  is  pervaded 
with  the  spirit  of  a  dreamy  pathos,  such  as 
constitutes  the  mental  atmosphere  of  modern 
Rome ;  not  unlike  the  haze  of  an  Indian  summer 
day,  which  we  only  half  enjoy  from  a  foreboding 
of  the  approach  of  winter.  All  outlines  are 
softened  and  partially  blurred  in  it,  as  time  and 
decay  have  softened  the  outlines  of  the  old 
Roman  ruins.  We  recognize  the  same  style 
with  which  we  are  familiar  in  "The  Scarlet 
Letter,"  but  influenced  by  a  change  in  Haw 
thorne's  external  impressions. 

It  is  a  rare  opportunity  when  the  work  of  a 
great  writer  can  be  traced  back  to  its  first 
nebulous  conception,  as  we  trace  the  design  of  a 
pictorial  artist  to  the  first  drawing  that  he  made 
for  his  subject.  Although  we  cannot  witness 
the  development  of  the  plot  of  this  romance  in 
Hawthorne's  mind,  it  is  much  to  see  in  what 

362 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

manner  the  different  elements  of  which  it  is 
composed,  first  presented  themselves  to  him, 
and  how  he  adapted  them  to  his  purpose. 

The  first  of  these  in  order  of  time  was  the 
beautiful  Jewess,  whom  he  met  at  the  Lord 
Mayor's  banquet  in  London;  who  attracted  him 
by  her  tout  ensemble,  but  at  the  same  time 
repelled  him  by  an  indefinable  impression,  a 
mysterious  something,  that  he  could  not  analyze. 
There  would  seem,  however,  to  have  been  another 
Jewess  connected  with  the  character  of  Miriam; 
for  I  once  heard  Mrs.  Hawthorne  narrating  a 
story  in  which  she  stated  that  she  and  her  hus 
band  were  driving  through  London  in  a  cab,  and 
passing  close  to  the  sidewalk  in  a  crowded  street 
they  saw  a  beautiful  woman,  with  black  hair  and 
a  ruddy  complexion,  walking  with  the  most 
ill-favored  and  disagreeable  looking  Jew  that 
could  be  imagined;  and  on  the  woman's  face 
there  was  an  expression  of  such  deep-seated 
unhappiness  that  Hawthorne  and  his  wife 
turned  to  each  other,  and  he  said,  "I  think  that 
woman's  face  will  always  haunt  me."  I  did  not 
hear  the  beginning  of  Mrs.  Hawthorne's  tale, 
but  I  always  supposed  that  it  related  to  "The 
Marble  Faun,"  and  it  would  seem  as  if  the 
character  of  Miriam  was  a  composite  of  these 
two  daughters  of  Israel,  uniting  the  enigmatical 
quality  of  one  with  the  unfortunate  companion 
ship  of  the  other,  and  the  beauty  of  both. 

As  previously  noticed,  the  portrait  of  Beatrice 
Cenci  excited  a  deeply  penetrating  interest  in 
Hawthorne,  and  his  reflections  on  it  day  after 

363 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

day  would  naturally  lead  him  to  a  similar  design 
in  regard  to  the  romance  which  he  was  con 
templating.  The  attribution  of  a  catastrophe 
like  Beatrice's  to  either  of  the  two  Jewesses, 
would  of  course  be  adventitious,  and  should 
be  considered  in  the  light  of  an  artistic 
privilege. 

The  "Faun"  of  Praxiteles  in  the  museum  of 
the  Capitol  next  attracted  his  attention.  This 
is  but  a  poor  copy  of  the  original;  but  he  pene 
trated  the  motive  of  the  sculptor  with  those 
deep-seeing  eyes  of  his,  and  there  is  no  analysis 
of  an  ancient  statue  by  Brunn  or  Furtwangler 
that  equals  Hawthorne's  description  of  this  one. 
It  seems  as  if  he  must  have  looked  backward 
across  the  centuries  into  the  very  mind  of 
Praxiteles,  and  he  was,  in  fact,  the  first  critic 
to  appreciate  its  high  value.  The  perfect  ease 
and  simple  beauty  of  the  figure  belong  to  a 
higher  grade  of  art  than  the  Apollo  Belvedere, 
and  Hawthorne  discovered  what  Winckelmann 
had  overlooked.  He  immediately  conceived  the 
idea  of  bringing  the  faun  to  life,  and  seeing 
how  he  would  behave  and  comport  himself  in 
the  modern  world  —  in  brief,  to  use  the  design 
of  Praxiteles  as  the  mainspring  of  a  romance. 
In  the  evening  of  April  22,  1858,  he  wrote  in 
his  journal: 

"  I  looked  at  the  Faun  of  Praxiteles,  and  was 
sensible  of  a  peculiar  charm  in  it;  a  sylvan 
beauty  and  homeliness,  friendly  and  wild  at 
once.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  story,  with  all 
sorts  of  fun  and  pathos  in  it,  might  be  contrived 

364 


STATUE  OF  PRAXITELES  RESTING  FAUN,  WHICH  HAWTHORNE  HAS 
DESCRIBED  AND  BROUGHT  TO  LIFE  IN  THE  CHARACTER  OF  DONA- 
TELLO 


OF  THE 

I    UNIVERSITY 

OF 

o> 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

on  the  idea  of  their  species  having  become 
intermingled  with  the  human  race;  a  family 
with  the  faun  blood  in  them,  having  prolonged 
itself  from  the  classic  era  till  our  own  days. 
The  tail  might  have  disappeared,  by  dint  of 
constant  intermarriages  with  ordinary  mortals; 
but  the  pretty  hairy  ears  should  occasionally 
reappear  in  members  of  the  family;  and  the 
moral  instincts  and  intellectual  characteristics 
of  the  faun  might  be  most  picturesquely  brought 
out,  without  detriment  to  the  human  interest 
of  the  story. " 

This  statue  served  to  concentrate  the  various 
speculative  objects  which  had  been  hovering 
before  Hawthorne's  imagination  during  the  past 
winter,  and  when  he  reached  Florence  six  weeks 
later,  the  chief  details  of  the  plot  were  already 
developed  in  his  mind. 

Hilda  and  Kenyon  are,  of  course,  subordinate 
characters,  like  the  first  walking  lady  and  the 
first  walking  gentleman  on  the  stage.  They  are 
the  sympathetic  friends  who  watch  the  progress 
of  the  drama,  continually  hoping  to  be  of  service, 
but  still  finding  themselves  powerless  to  prevent 
the  catastrophe.  It  was  perhaps  their  unselfish 
interest  in  their  mutual  friends  that  at  length 
taught  them  to  know  each  other's  worth,  so 
that  they  finally  became  more  than  friends  to 
one  another.  True  love,  to  be  firmly  based, 
requires  such  a  mutual  interest  or  common 
ground  on  which  the  parties  can  meet, — some 
thing  in  addition  to  the  usual  attraction  of  the 
sexes. 

365 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

Mrs.  Hawthorne  has  been  supposed  by  some 
to  have  been  the  original  of  Hilda ;  and  by  others 
her  daughter  Una. 

Conway  holds  an  exceptional  opinion,  that 
Hilda  was  the  feminine  counterpart  of  Hawthorne 
himself;  but  Hilda  is  only  too  transparent  a 
character,  while  Hawthorne  always  was,  and 
still  remains,  impenetrable;  and  there  was 
enough  of  her  father  in  Miss  Una,  to  render 
the  same  objection  applicable  in  her  case.  Hilda 
seems  to  me  very  much  like  Mrs.  Hawthorne, 
as  one  may  imagine  her  in  her  younger  days; 
like  her  in  her  mental  purity,  her  conscientious 
ness,  her  devotion  to  her  art, — which  we  trust 
afterwards  was  transformed  into  a  devotion 
to  her  husband, — her  tendency  to  self-seclu 
sion,  her  sensitiveness  and  her  lack  of  decisive 
resolution.  She  is  essentially  what  they  call 
on  the  stage  an  ingenue  character;  that  is, 
one  that  remains  inexperienced  in  the  midst 
of  experience;  and  it  is  in  this  character 
that  she  contributes  to  the  catastrophe  of  the 
drama. 

If  Hawthorne  appears  anywhere  in  his  own 
fiction,  it  is  not  in  ''The  Blithedale  Romance," 
but  in  the  role  of  Kenyon.  Although  Kenyon's 
profession  is  that  of  a  sculptor,  he  is  not  to  be 
confounded  with  the  gay  and  versatile  Story. 
Neither  is  he  statuesque,  as  the  English  reviewer 
criticised  him.  He  is  rather  a  shadowy  character, 
as  Hawthorne  himself  was  shadowy,  and  as 
an  author  always  must  be  shadowy  to  his 
readers;  but  Kenyon  is  to  Hawthorne  what 

366 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Prospero  is  to  Shakespeare,  and  if  he  does  not 
make  use  of  magic  arts,  it  is  because  they  no 
longer  serve  their  purpose  in  human  affairs. 
He  is  a  wise,  all-seeing,  sympathetic  mind,  and 
his  active  influence  in  the  play  is  less  conspicuous 
because  it  is  always  so  quiet,  and  so  correct. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  first  chapter  and 
the  last  chapter  of  this  romance  have  the  same 
title:  "Miriam,  Hilda,  Kenyon,  Donatello." 
This  is  according  to  their  respective  ages  and 
sexes;  but  it  is  also  the  terms  of  a  proportion, 
— as  Miriam  is  to  Hilda,  so  is  Kenyon  to  Dona 
tello.  As  the  experienced  woman  is  to  the 
inexperienced  woman,  so  is  the  experienced  man 
to  the  inexperienced  man.  This  seems  simple 
enough,  but  it  has  momentous  consequences 
in  the  story.  Donatello,  who  is  a  type  of  natural 
but  untried  virtue,  falls  in  love  with  Miriam, 
not  only  for  her  beauty,  but  because  she  has 
acquired  that  worldly  experience  which  he 
lacks.  Hilda,  suddenly  aroused  to  a  sense  of 
her  danger  in  the  isolated  life  she  is  leading, 
accepts  Kenyon  as  a  protector.  The  means  in 
this  proportion  come  together  and  unite,  be 
cause  they  are  the  mean  terms,  and  pursue  a 
medium  course.  The  extremes  fly  apart  and  are 
separated,  simply  because  they  are  extremes. 
But  there  is  a  spiritual  bond  between  them, 
invisible,  but  stronger  than  steel,  which  will 
bring  them  together  again — at  the  Day  of 
Judgment,  if  not  sooner. 

All  tragedy  is  an  investigation  or  exempli 
fication  of  that  form  of  human  error  which  we 

367 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

call  sin ;  a  catastrophe  of  nature  or  a  simple  error 
of  judgment  may  be  tragical,  but  will  not 
constitute  a  tragedy  without  the  moral  or  poetic 
element. 

In  "The  Scarlet  Letter,"  we  have  the  sin  of 
concealment  and  its  consequences.  The  first 
step  toward  reformation  is  confession,  and 
without  that,  repentance  is  little  more  than  a 
good  intention. 

In  "The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  Haw 
thorne  has  treated  the  sin  of  hypocrisy — a 
smiling  politician  who  courts  popularity  and 
pretends  to  be  everybody's  friend,  and  agrees 
with  everybody, — only  with  a  slight  reservation. 
There  may  be  occasions  on  which  hypocrisy 
is  a  virtue ;  but  the  habit  of  hypocrisy  for  personal 
ends  is  like  a  dry  rot  in  the  heart  of  man. 

In  "The  Blithedale  Romance,"  we  find  the 
sin  of  moral  affectation.  Neither  Hollingsworth 
nor  Zenobia  is  really  what  they  pretend  them 
selves  to  be.  Their  morality  is  a  hollow  shell, 
and  gives  way  to  the  first  effective  temptation. 
Zenobia  betrays  Priscilla;  and  is  betrayed  in 
turn  by  Hollingsworth, —  as  well  as  the  interests 
of  the  association  which  had  been  committed 
tohis  charge. 

jFhe  kernel  of  "The  Marble  Faun"  is  original 
sin.  It  is  a  story  of  the  fall  of  man,  told  again  in 
the  light  of  modern  science.  It  is  a  wonderful 
coincidence  that  almost  in  the  same  months  that 
Hawthorne  was  writing  this  romance,  Charles 
Darwin  was  also  finishing  his  work  on  the 
"Origin  of  Species;"  for  one  is  the  moral  coun- 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

terpart  of  the  other.  Hawthorne  did  not  read 
scientific  and  philosophical  books,  but  he  may 
have  heard  something  of  Darwin's  undertaking 
in  England,  as  well  as  Napoleon's  prophetic 
statement  at  St.  Helena,  that  all  the  animals 
form  an  ascending  series,  leading  up  to  man.* 
The  skeleton  of  a  prehistoric  man  discovered 
in  the  Neanderthal  cave,  which  was  supposed 
to  have  proved  the  Darwinian  theory,  does  not 
suggest  a  figure  similar  to  the  "Faun"  of 
Praxiteles,  but  the  followers  of  Darwin  have 
frequently  adverted  to  the  Hellenic  traditions 
of  fauns  and  satyrs  in  support  of  their  theory. 
Hawthorne,  however,  has  made  a  long  stride 
beyond  Darwin,  for  he  has  endeavored  to 
reconcile  this  view  of  creation  with  the  Mosaic 
cosmogony;  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  he 
has  been  fairly  successful.  The  lesson  that 
Hawthorne  teaches  is,  that  evil  does  not  reside 
in  error,  but  in  neglecting  to  be  instructed  by 
our  errors.  It  is  this  which  makes  the  difference 
between  a  St.  Paul  and  a  Nero.  The  fall  of  man 
was  only  apparent;  it  was  really  a  rise  in  life. 
The  Garden  of  Eden  prefigures  the  childhood  of 
the  human  race.  Do  we  not  all  go  through  this 
idyllic  moral  condition  in  childhood,  learning 
through  our  errors  that  the  only  true  happiness 
consists  in  self-control  ?  Do  not  all  judicious  par 
ents  protect  their  children  from  a  knowledge  of 
the  world's  wickedness,  so  long  as  it  is  possible  to 
prevent  it, — and  yet  not  too  long,  for  then  they 


*  Dr.  O'Meara's  "A  Voice  from  St.  Helena." 
24  369 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

would  become  unfitted  for  their  struggle  with 
the  world,  and  in  order  to  avoid  the  pitfalls  of 
mature  life  they  must  know  where  the  pitfalls 
are.  It  is  no  longer  essential  for  the  individual 
to  pass  through  the  Cain  and  Abel  experience — 
that  has  been  accomplished  by  the  race  as  a 
whole;  but  it  is  quite  possible  to  imagine  an 
incipient  condition  of  society  in  which  the 
distinction  of  justifiable  homicide  in  self-defence 
(which  is  really  the  justification  of  war  between 
nations)  has  not  yet  obtained. 

Hawthorne's  Donatello  is  supposed  to  belong, 
in  theory  at  least,  to  that  primitive  era;  but  it 
is  not  necessary  to  go  back  further  than  the 
feudal  period  to  look  for  a  man  who  never  has 
known  a  will  above  his  own.  Donatello  seizes 
Miriam's  tormentor  and  casts  him  down  the 
Tarpeian  Rock, — from  the  same  instinct,  or 
clairvoyant  perception,  that  a  hound  springs  at 
the  throat  of  his  master's  enemy.  When  the 
deed  is  done  he  recognizes  that  the  punishment 
is  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  offence,  —  which 
is  in  itself  the  primary  recognition  of  a  penal 
code, — and  more  especially  that  the  judgment  of 
man  is  against  him.  He  realizes  for  the  first 
time  the  fearful  possibilities  of  his  nature,  and 
begins  to  reflect.  He  is  a  changed  person;  and 
if  not  changed  for  the  better  yet  with  a  pos 
sibility  of  great  improvement  in  the  future. 
His  act  was  at  least  an  unselfish  one,  and  it 
might  serve  as  the  argument  for  a  debate, 
whether  Donatello  did  not  do  society  a  service  in 
ridding  the  earth  of  such  a  human  monstrosity. 

370 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Hawthorne  has  adjusted  the  moral  balance  of 
his  case  so  nicely,  that  a  single  scruple  would 
turn  the  scales. 

The  tradition  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
of  a  Golden  Age,  corresponds  in  a  manner  to  the 
Garden  of  Eden  of  Semitic  belief.  There  may 
be  some  truth  in  it.  Captain  Speke,  while  ex 
ploring  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  discovered  in 
central  Africa  a  negro  tribe  uncontaminated  by 
European  traders,  and  as  innocent  of  guile  as 
the  antelopes  upon  their  own  plains;  and  this 
suggests  to  us  that  all  families  and  races  of  men 
may  have  passed  through  the  Donatello  stage 
of  existence. 

Hawthorne's  master-stroke  in  the  romance  is 
his  description  or  analysis  of  the  effect  produced 
by  this  homicide  on  the  different  members  of 
the  group  to  which  he  has  introduced  us.  The 
experienced  and  worldly-wise  Kenyon  is  not 
informed  of  the  deed  until  his  engagement  to 
Hilda,  but  he  has  sufficient  reason  to  suspect 
something  of  the  kind  from  the  simultaneous 
disappearance  of  Donatello  and  the  model,  as 
well  as  from  the  sudden  change  in  Miriam's 
behavior.  Yet  he  does  not  treat  Donatello  with 
any  lack  of  confidence.  He  visits  him  at  his 
castle  of  Monte  Beni,  which  is  simply  the  Villa 
Manteiito  somewhat  idealized  and  removed 
into  the  recesses  of  the  Apennines;  he  consoles 
him  in  his  melancholy  humor;  tries  to  divert 
him  from  gloomy  thoughts;  and  meanwhile 
watches  with  a  keen  eye  and  friendly  solicitude 
for  the  denouement  of  this  mysterious  drama. 

371 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

If  he  had  seen  what  Hilda  saw,  he  would  probably 
have  left  Rome  as  quickly  as  possible,  never  to 
return;  and  Donatello's  fate  might  have  been 
different. 

The  effect  on  the  sensitive  and  inexperienced 
Hilda  was  like  a  horrible  nightmare.  She  cannot 
believe  her  senses,  and  yet  she  has  to  believe 
them.  It  seems  to  her  as  if  the  fiery  pit  has 
yawned  between  her  and  the  rest  of  the  human 
race.  Her  position  is  much  like  that  of  Hamlet, 
and  the  effect  on  her  is  somewhat  similar.  She 
thrusts  Miriam  from  her  with  bitterness;  yet 
forms  no  definite  resolutions,  and  does  she  knows 
not  what ;  until,  overburdened  by  the  conscious 
ness  of  her  fatal  secret,  she  discloses  the  affair 
to  an  unknown  priest  in  the  church  of  St.  Peter. 
Neither  does  she  seem  to  be  aware  at  any  time 
of  the  serious  consequences  of  this  action. 

Miriam,  more  experienced  even  than  Kenyon, 
is  not  affected  by  the  death  of  her  tormentor  so 
much  directly  as  she  is  by  its  influence  on 
Donatello.  Hitherto  she  had  been  indifferently 
pleased  by  his  admiration  for  her;  now  the 
tables  are  turned  and  she  conceives  the  very 
strongest  attachment  for  him.  She  follows  him 
to  his  castle  in  disguise,  dogs  his  footsteps  on 
the  excursion  which  he  and  Kenyon  make 
together,  shadows  his  presence  again  in  Rome, 
and  is  with  him  at  the  moment  of  his  arrest. 
This  is  all  that  we  know  of  her  from  the  time  of 
her  last  unhappy  interview  with  Hilda.  Her 
crime  consisted  merely  in  a  look, — the  expression 
of  her  eyes, — and  the  whole  world  is  free  to  her; 

372 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

but  her  heart  is  imprisoned  in  the  same  cell 
with  Donatello.  There  is  not  a  more  powerful 
ethical  effect  in  Dante  or  Sophocles. 

A  certain  French  writer  *  blames  Hilda  severely 
for  her  betrayal  of  Miriam  (who  was  at  least 
her  best  friend  in  Rome),  and  furthermore 
designates  her  as  an  immoral  character.  This, 
we  may  suppose,  is  intended  for  a  hit  at  New 
England  Puritanism;  and  from  the  French 
stand-point,  it  is  not  unfair.  Hilda  represents 
Puritanism  in  its  weakness  and  in  its  strength. 
It  is  true,  what  Hamlet  says,  that  "  conscience 
makes  cowards  of  us  all,"  but  only  true  under 
conditions  like  those  of  Hamlet, — desperate 
emergencies,  which  require  exceptional  expedi 
ents.  On  the  contrary,  in  carrying  out  a  great 
reform  like  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the  educa 
tion  of  the  blind,  or  the  foundation  of  national 
unity,  a  man's  conscience  becomes  a  tower  of 
strength  to  him.  As  already  intimated,  what 
Hilda  ought  to  have  done  was,  to  leave  Rome 
at  once,  and  forever ;  but  she  is  no  more  capable 
of  forming  such  a  resolution,  than  Hamlet  was 
of  organizing  a  conspiracy  against  his  usurping 
uncle.  When,  however,  the  priest  steps  out 
from  the  confessional-box  and  attempts  to  make 
a  convert  of  Hilda, — for  which  indeed  she  has 
given  him  a  fair  opening, — she  asserts  herself 
and  her  New  England  training,  with  true 
feminine  dignity,  and  in  fact  has  decidedly  the 
best  of  the  argument.  It  is  a  trying  situation, 


*  Name  forgotten,  but  the  fact  is  indelible . 
373 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

in  which  she  develops  unexpected  resources. 
Hawthorne's  genius  never  shone  forth  more 
brilliantly  than  in  this  scene  at  St.  Peter's. 
It  is  Shakespearian. 

Much  dissatisfaction  was  expressed  when 
"The  Marble  Faun"  was  first  published,  at  the 
general  vagueness  of  its  conclusion.  Haw 
thorne's  admirers  wished  especially  for  some 
clearer  explanation  of  Miriam's  earlier  life,  and 
of  her  relation  to  the  strange  apparition  of  the 
catacombs.  He  answered  these  interrogatories 
in  a  supplementary  chapter  which  practically 
left  the  subject  where  it  was  before — an  additional 
piece  of  mystification.  In  a  letter  to  Henry 
Bright  he  admitted  that  he  had  no  very  definite 
scheme  in  his  mind  in  regard  to  Miriam's  previous 
history,  and  this  is  probably  the  reason  why 
his  readers  feel  this  vague  sense  of  dissatisfaction 
with  the  plot.  I  have  myself  often  tried  to 
think  out  a  prelude  to  the  story,  but  without 
any  definite  result.  Miriam's  persecuting  model 
was  evidently  a  husband  who  had  been  forced 
upon  her  by  her  parents,  and  would  not  that  be 
sufficient  to  account  for  her  moods  of  gloom  and 
despondency?  Yet  Hawthorne  repeatedly  inti 
mates  that  there  was  something  more  than  this. 
Let  us  not  think  of  it.  If  the  tale  was  not 
framed  in  mystery,  Donatello  would  not  seem 
so  real  to  us.  Do  not  the  characters  in  "Don 
Quixote"  and  "Wilhelm  Meister"  spring  up  as 
it  were  out  of  the  ground  ?  They  come  we  know 
not  whence,  and  they  go  we  know  not  whither. 
It  is  with  these  that  "The  Marble  Faun"  should 

374 


TORRE  MEDIAVALLE  DELLA  SCIMMIA  (HILDA  S  TOWER  J,  ON  THE  VIA  POR- 
TOGHESE  AT  ROME,  WHERE  HAWTHORNE  REPRESENTS  HILDA  TO  HAVE  LIVED 
AND  TENDED  THE  LAMP  AT  THE  VIRGIN^  SHRINE  ON  THE  TOP  OF  THE 
TOWER 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

be  classed  and  compared,  and  not  with  "  Middle- 
march,"  " Henry  Esmond,"  or  "The  Heart  of 
Midlothian." 

Goethe  said,  while  looking  at  the  group  of  the 
"Laocoon,"  "I  think  that  young  fellow  on  the 
right  will  escape  the  serpents."  This  was  not 
according  to  the  story  Virgil  tells,  but  it  is 
true  to  natural  history.  Similarly,  it  is  pleasant 
to  think  that  the  Pope's  mercy  may  ultimately 
have  been  extended  to  Donatello.  We  can 
imagine  an  aged  couple  living  a  serious,  retired 
life  in  the  castle  of  Monte  Beni,  childless,  and  to 
a  certain  extent  joyless,  but  taking  comfort  in 
their  mutual  affection,  and  in  acts  of  kindness 
to  their  fellow-mortals. 

In  order  to  see  Hilda's  tower  in  Rome,  go 
straight  down  from  the  Spanish  Steps  to  the 
Corso,  turn  to  the  right,  and  you  will  soon  come 
to  the  Via  Portoghese  (on  the  opposite  side), 
where  you  will  easily  recognize  the  tower  on  the 
right  hand.  The  tower  is  five  stories  in  height, 
set  in  the  front  of  the  palace,  and  would  seem  to 
be  older  than  the  building  about  it;  the  relic, 
perhaps,  of  some  distinguished  mediaeval  struc 
ture.  The  odd  little  shrine  to  the  Virgin,  a 
toy-like  affair,  still  surmounts  it ;  but  its  lamp 
is  no  longer  burning.  It  was  fine  imagination 
to  place  Hilda  in  this  lofty  abode. 


375 


CHAPTER  XVII 
HOMEWARD  BOUND:    1860-1862 

THERE  is  no  portion  of  Hawthorne's  life 
concerning  which  we  know  less  than  the  four 
years  after  his  return  from  England  to  his 
native  land.  He  was  so  celebrated  that  every 
eye  was  upon  him;  boys  stopped  their  games 
to  see  him  pass  by,  and  farmers  stood  still  in 
the  road  to  stare  at  him.  He  was  Hawthorne 
the  famous,  and  every  movement  he  made 
was  remembered,  every  word  spoken  by  him 
was  recorded  or  related,  and  yet  altogether  it 
amounts  to  little  enough.  Letters  have  been 
preserved  in  number, — many  of  his  own  and 
others  from  his  English  friends,  and  those  from 
his  wife  to  her  relatives;  but  they  do  not  add 
much  to  the  picture  we  have  already  formed  in 
our  minds  of  the  man.  As  he  said  somewhere, 
fame  had  come  too  late  to  be  a  satisfaction  to 
him,  but  on  the  contrary  more  of  an  annoyance. 
Hawthorne  left  Leamington  the  last  of  March, 
and  transferred  his  family  to  Bath,  which  he 
soon  discovered  to  be  the  pleasantest  English 
city  he  had  lived  in  yet,  —  symmetrically  laid 
out,  like  a  Continental  city,  and  built  for  the 
most  part  of  a  yellowish  sandstone,  not  unlike 
in  appearance  the  travertine  of  which  St.  Peter's 
at  Rome  is  built.  The  older  portion  of  the 
city  lies  in  a  hollow  among  the  hills,  like  an 

376 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

amphitheatre,  and  the  more  recent  additions 
rise  upon  the  hill-sides  above  it  to  a  consider 
able  height.  This  is  the  last  note  of  enthusiasm 
in  his  writings;  and  in  the  next  entry  in  his 
diary,  which  was  written  at  Lothrop  Motley's 
house,  Hertford  Street,  London,  May  16,  he 
makes  this  ominous  confession:  "I  would  gladly 
journalize  some  of  my  proceedings,  and  describe 
things  and  people,  but  I  find  the  same  coldness 
and  stiffness  in  my  pen  as  always  since  our 
return  to  England."  It  is  only  too  evident 
that  from  this  time  literary  composition,  which 
had  been  the  chief  recreation  of  his  youth,  and 
in  which  he  had  always  found  satisfaction  until 
now,  was  no  longer  a  pleasure  to  him.  It  is 
the  last  entry  in  his  journal,  at  least  for  more 
than  two  years,  and  whatever  writing  he  ac 
complished  in  the  mean  time  was  done  for  the 
sake  of  his  wife  and  children.  Dickens  had  a 
similar  experience  the  last  year  of  his  life. 
Clearly,  Hawthorne's  nervous  force  was  waning. 
On  May  15,  Hawthorne  and  Motley  were 
invited  to  dine  by  Earl  Dufferin,  that  admi 
rable  diplomat  and  one  of  the  pleasantest  of 
men.  In  fact,  if  there  was  a  person  living  who 
could  make  Hawthorne  feel  perfectly  at  his 
ease,  it  was  DufTerin.  Motley  provided  some 
entertainment  or  other  for  his  guest  every  day, 
and  Hawthorne  confessed  that  the  stir  and 
activity  of  London  life  were  doing  him  "a  won 
derful  deal  of  good."  What  he  seems  to  have 
needed  at  this  time  was  a  vigorous,  objective 
employment  that  would  give  his  circulation  a 

377 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

start  in  the  right  direction;  but  how  was  he  to 
obtain  that? 

He  enjoyed  one  last  stroll  with  Henry  Bright 
through  Hyde  Park  and  along  the  Strand, 
and  found  time  to  say  a  long  farewell  to  Francis 
Bennoch:  the  last  time  he  was  to  meet  either 
of  them  on  this  side  of  eternity. 

He  returned  to  Bath  the  ist  of  June,  and 
ten  days  later  they  all  embarked  for  Boston,  — 
as  it  happened,  by  a  pleasant  coincidence,  with 
the  same  captain  with  whom  they  had  left 
America  seven  years  before.  Mrs.  Hawthorne's 
sister,  Mrs.  Horace  Mann,  prepared  their  house 
at  Concord  for  their  reception,  and  there  they 
arrived  at  the  summer  solstice. 

The  good  people  of  Concord  had  been 
mightily  stirred  up  that  spring,  by  an  attempt 
to  arrest  Frank  B.  Sanborn  and  carry  him 
forcibly  to  Washington, — contrary  to  law,  as 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  decided  the 
following  day.  The  marshal  who  arrested 
him  certainly  proceeded  more  after  the  manner 
of  a  burglar  than  of  a  civil  officer,  hiding 
himself  with  his  posse  comitatus  in  a  barn 
close  to  Sanborn 's  school-house,  watching  his 
proceedings  through  the  cracks  in  the  boards, 
and  finally  arresting  him  at  night,  just  as  he 
was  going  to  bed;  but  the  alarm  was  quickly 
sounded,  and  the  whole  male  population  of  the 
place,  including  Emerson,  turned  out  like  a 
swarm  of  angry  hornets,  and  the  marshal  and 
his  posse  were  soon  thankful  to  escape  with 
their  bones  in  a  normal  condition.  A  few  nights 

378 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

later,  the  barn,  which  was  owned  by  a  promi 
nent  official  in  the  Boston  Custom  House,  was 
burned  to  the  ground  (the  fire-company  assist 
ing),  as  a  sacrifice  on  the  altar  of  personal 
liberty. 

The  excitement  of  this  event  had  not  yet 
subsided  when  the  arrival  of  the  Hawthorne 
family  produced  a  milder  and  more  amiable, 
but  no  less  profound,  sensation  in  the  old 
settlement;  and  this  was  considerably  increased 
by  the  fact  that  for  the  first  month  nothing  was 
seen  of  them,  except  a  sturdy-looking  boy 
fishing  from  a  rock  in  Concord  River,  opposite 
the  spot  where  his  father  and  Channing  had 
discovered  the  unfortunate  school-mistress.  Old 
friends  made  their  calls  and  were  cordially 
received,  but  Hawthorne  himself  did  not  appear 
in  public  places;  and  it  was  soon  noticed  that 
he  did  not  take  the  long  walks  which  formerly 
carried  him  to  the  outer  limits  of  the  town. 
He  was  sometimes  met  on  the  way  to  Walden 
Pond,  either  alone  or  in  company  with  his  son; 
but  Bronson  Alcott  more  frequently  noticed 
him  gliding  along  in  a  ghost-like  manner  by 
the  rustic  fence  which  separated  their  two 
estates,  or  on  the  way  to  Sleepy  Hollow.  When 
the  weather  became  cooler  he  formed  a  habit 
of  walking  back  and  forth  on  the  hill-side 
above  his  house,  where  the  bank  descends 
sharply  like  a  railroad-cut,  with  dw^arf  pines  and 
shrub  oaks  on  the  further  side  of  it.  He  wore  a 
path  there,  which  is  described  in  "Septimius 
Felton, "  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  first 

379 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

inception  of  that  story  entered  his  mind  while 
looking  down  upon  the  Lexington  road  beneath 
him,  and  imagining  how  it  appeared  while  filled 
with  marching  British  soldiers. 

About  July  10,  1860,  the  scholars  of  Mr. 
Sanborn's  school,  male  and  female,  gave  an 
entertainment  in  the  Town  Hall,  not  unlike 
Harvard  Class  Day.  Mrs.  Hawthorne  and  her 
eldest  daughter  appeared  among  the  guests, 
and  attracted  much  attention  from  the  quiet 
grace  and  dignity  of  their  manners;  but  there 
was  an  expression  of  weariness  on  Miss  Una's 
face,  which  contrasted  strangely  with  the  happy, 
blithesome  looks  of  the  school-girls.  Some 
idea  of  the  occasion  may  be  derived  from  a 
passing  remark  of  Mrs.  Hawthorne  to  a  Harvard 
student  present:  "My  daughter  will  be  happy 
to  dance  with  you,  sir,  if  I  can  only  find  her." 

In  September  Hawthorne  wrote  to  James  T. 
Fields:* 

"We  are  in  great  trouble  on  account  of  our 
poor  Una,  in  whom  the  bitter  dregs  of  that 
Roman  fever  are  still  rankling,  and  have  now 
developed  themselves  in  a  way  which  the 
physicians  foreboded.  I  do  not  like  to  write 
about  it,  but  will  tell  you  when  we  meet.  Say 
nothing. " 

Miss  Una  was  evidently  far  from  well,  and  her 
father's  anxiety  for  her  sensibly  affected  his 
mental  tone. 

He  was  invited  at  once  to  join  the  Saturday 
Club,  popularly  known  at  that  time  as  the 

*Mrs.  J.  T.  Fields,  118. 
380 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Atlantic  Club,  because  its  most  conspicuous 
members  were  contributors  to  that  periodical. 
Hawthorne  did  not  return  in  season  to  take 
part  in  the  Club's  expedition  to  the  Adirondack 
Mountains,  concerning  which  Doctor  Holmes 
remarked  that,  considering  the  number  of  rifles 
they  carried,  it  was  fortunate  that  they  all 
returned  alive.  The  meetings  of  the  Club  came 
but  once  a  month,  and  as  the  last  train  to  Con 
cord  was  not  a  very  late  one,  Judge  Hoar  had 
his  carryall  taken  down  to  Waltham  on  such 
occasions,  and  thence  he,  with  Hawthorne  and 
Emerson,  drove  back  to  Concord  through  the 
woods  in  the  darkness  or  moonlight;  and  Haw 
thorne  may  have  enjoyed  this  as  much  as  any 
portion  of  the  entertainment. 

A  club  whose  membership  is  based  upon 
celebrity  reminds  one  rather  of  a  congregation 
of  stags,  all  with  antlers  of  seven  tines.  There 
was  every  shade  of  opinion,  political,  philo 
sophical  and  religious,  represented  in  the  Satur 
day  Club,  and  if  they  never  fought  over  such 
subjects  it  was  certainly  much  to  their  credit. 
Very  little  has  been  divulged  of  what  took 
place  at  their  meetings;  but  it  is  generally 
known  that  in  the  winter  of  1861  Longfellow 
was  obliged  to  warn  his  associates  that  if  they 
persisted  in  abusing  Sumner  he  should  be  obliged 
to  leave  their  company;  Sumner  being  looked 
upon  by  the  Democrats  and  more  timid  Re 
publicans  as  the  chief  obstacle  to  pacification; 
as  if  any  one  man  could  prop  a  house  up  when  it 
was  about  to  fall.  After  the  War  began,  this 

381 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

naturally  came  to  an  end,  and  Sumner  was 
afterwards  invited  to  join  the  Club,  with  what 
satisfaction  to  Hoar,  Lowell,  and  Holmes  it 
might  be  considering  rather  curiously  to  inquire. 
We  can  at  least  feel  confident  that  Hawthorne 
had  no  share  in  this.  He  did  not  believe  in 
fighting  shadows,  and  he  at  least  respected 
Sumner  for  his  frankness  and  disinterestedness. 

Such  differences  of  opinion,  however,  are  not 
conducive  to  freedom  of  discussion.  Henry 
James,  Sr.,  lifts  the  veil  for  a  moment  in  a  letter 
to  Emerson,  written  about  this  time,*  and 
affords  us  a  picture  of  Hawthorne  at  the  Satur 
day  Club,  which  might  bear  the  designation  of  a 
highly-flavored  caricature.  According  to  Mr. 
James,  John  M.  Forbes,  the  Canton  millionaire, 
preserved  the  balance  at  one  end  of  the  table, 
while  Hawthorne,  an  oasis  in  a  desert,  served  as 
the  nearest  approach  to  a  human  being,  at  the 
other.  "How  he  buried  his  eyes  in  his  plate 
and  ate  with  such  a  voracity !  that  no  one  should 
dare  to  ask  him  a  question." 

We  do  not  realize  the  caricaturist  in  Henry 
James,  Jr.,  so  readily,  on  account  of  his  elastic 
power  of  expression;  but  the  relationship  is 
plain  and  apparent.  Both  father  and  son  ought 
to  have  been  baptized  in  the  Castalian  Fount. 
There  are  those  who  have  been  at  table  with  both 
Hawthorne  and  the  elder  James,  and  without 
the  slightest  reflection  on  Mr.  James,  have  con- 

*  Memoir  of  Bronson  Alcott;  also  the  "Hawthorne 
Centenary. " 

382 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

fessed  their  preference  for  the  quiet  composure 
and  simple  dignity  of  Hawthorne.  In  truth 
Hawthorne's  manners  were  above  those  of  the 
polished  courtier  or  the  accomplished  man  of 
fashion:  they  were  poetic  manners,  and  in  this 
respect  Longfellow  most  nearly  resembled  him 
of  all  members  of  the  Club;  although  Emerson 
also  had  admirable  manners  and  they  were 
largely  the  cause  of  his  success.  It  would  have 
done  no  harm  if  Emerson  had  burned  this  letter 
after  its  first  perusal,  but  since  it  is  out  of  the 
bag  we  must  even  consider  it  as  it  deserves. 

Hawthorne  must  have  enjoyed  the  meetings  of 
the  Club  or  he  would  not  have  attended  them 
so  regularly.  He  wrote  an  account  of  the  first 
occasion  on  which  he  was  present,  giving '  an 
accurate  description  of  the  dinner  itself  and 
enclosing  a  diagram  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  guests  were  seated,  but  without  any  com 
mentary  on  the  proceedings  of  the  day.  It 
was,  after  all,  one  of  the  nerve-centres  of  the 
great  world,  and  an  agreeable  change  from  the 
domestic  monotony  of  the  Wayside.  Thackeray 
would  have  descried  rich  material  for  his  pen  in 
it,  but  Hawthorne's  studies  lay  in  another  direc 
tion.  Great  men  were  not  his  line  in  literature. 

Meanwhile  Mrs.  Hawthorne  and  her  daughter 
were  transforming  their  Concord  home  into  a 
small  repository  of  the  fine  arts.  Without  much 
that  would  pass  by  the  title  of  elegance,  they 
succeeded  in  giving  it  an  unpretentious  air  of 
refinement,  and  one  could  not  enter  it  without 
realizing  that  the  materials  of  a  world-wide 

383 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

culture  had  been  brought  together  there.  Haw 
thorne  soon  found  the  dimensions  of  the  house 
too  narrow  for  the  enlarged  views  which  he  had 
brought  with  him  from  abroad,  and  he  designed 
a  tower  to  be  constructed  at  one  corner  of  it, 
similar  to,  if  not  so  lofty  as  that  of  the  Villa 
Manteiito.  This  occupied  him  and  the  dila 
tory  Concord  carpenter  for  nearly  half  a  year; 
and  meanwhile  chaos  and  confusion  reigned 
supreme.  There  was  no  one  whose  ears  could 
be  more  severely  offended  by  the  music  of  the 
carpenter's  box  and  the  mason's  trowel  than 
Hawthorne,  and  he  knew  not  whether  to  fly 
his  home  or  remain  in  it.  Not  until  all  this 
was  over  could  he  think  seriously  of  a  new 
romance. 

He  made  his  study  in  the  upper  room  of  the 
tower;  a  room  exactly  twenty  feet  square, 
with  a  square  vaulted  ceiling  and  five  windows, 
— too  many,  one  would  suppose,  to  produce 
a  pleasant  effect  of  light, — and  walls  papered 
light  yellow.  There  he  could  be  as  quiet  and 
retired  as  in  the  attic  of  his  Uncle  Robert  Man 
ning's  house  in  Salem.  Conway  states  that  he 
wrote  at  a  high  desk,  like  Longfellow,  and 
walked  back  and  forth  in  the  room  while  thinking 
out  what  he  was  going  to  say.  The  view  from 
his  windows  extended  across  the  meadows  to 
Walden  woods  and  the  Fitchburg  railroad 
track,  and  it  also  commanded  the  Alcott  house 
and  the  road  to  Concord  village.  It  was  in  this 
work-shop  that  he  prepared  "Our  Old  Home" 
for  the  press  and  wrote  the  greater  part  of 

384 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

"Septimius    Felton"    and    "The    Dolliver    Ro 
mance." 

The  War  was  a  new  source  of  distraction. 
It  broke  out  before  the  tower  was  finished, 
stimulating  Hawthorne's  nerves,  but  disturbing 
that  delicate  mental  equilibrium  upon  which 
satisfactory  procedure  of  his  writing  depended. 
On  May  26,  1861,  he  wrote  to  Horatio  Bridge: 

"The  war,  strange  to  say,  has  had  a  beneficial 
effect  upon  my  spirits,  which  were  flagging 
wofully  before  it  broke  out.  But  it  was  delight 
ful  to  share  in  the  heroic  sentiment  of  the  time, 
and  to  feel  that  I  had  a  country, — a  conscious 
ness  which  seemed  to  make  me  young  again. 
One  thing  as  regards  this  matter  I  regret,  and 
one  thing  I  am  glad  of.  The  regrettable  thing 
is  that  I  am  too  old  to  shoulder  a  musket 
myself,  and  the  joyful  thing  is  that  Julian  is 
too  young. "  * 

Hawthorne's  patriotism  was  genuine  and 
deep-seated.  He  was  not  the  only  American 
whom  the  bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter  had 
awakened  to  the  fact  that  he  had  a  country. 
What  we  have  always  enjoyed,  we  do  not  think 
of  until  there  is  danger  of  losing  it.  In  the 
same  letter,  he  confesses  that  he  does  not  quite 
understand  "what  we  are  fighting  for,  or  what 
definite  result  can  be  expected.  If  we  pummel 
the  South  ever  so  hard,  they  will  love  us  none 
the  better  for  it;  and  even  if  we  subjugate 
them,  our  next  step  should  be  to  cut  them  adrift." 

*  J.   Hawthorne,  ii.   276. 
25  385 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

There  were  many  in  those  times  who  thought 
and  felt  as  Hawthorne  did.  Douglas  said  in 
the  Senate,  "  Even  if  you  coerce  the  Southern 
States  and  bring  them  back  by  force,  it  will 
not  be  the  same  Union."  A  people  does  not 
necessarily  mean  a  nation',  for  the  idea  of 
nationality  is  of  slow  growth,  and  is  in  a  manner 
opposed  to  the  idea  of  democracy;  for  if  the 
right  of  government  depends  on  the  consent  of 
the  governed,  the  primary  right  of  the  governed 
must  be  to  abrogate  that  government  whenever 
they  choose  to  do  so.  Hawthorne  was  simply  a 
consistent  democrat;  but  time  has  proved  the 
fallacy  of  Douglas's  statement,  and  that  a 
forcible  restoration  of  the  Union  was  entirely 
compatible  with  friendliness  and  mutal  good-will 
between  the  different  sections  of  the  country, — 
after  slavery,  which  was  the  real  obstacle  to 
this,  had  been  eliminated.  If  the  States  east 
of  the  Alleghanies  should  attempt  to  separate 
from  the  rest  of  the  nation,  it  would  inevitably 
produce  a  war  similar  to  that  of  1861. 

Hawthorne  even  went  to  the  length  at  this 
time  of  proposing  to  arm  the  negroes,  and  pre 
paring  them  "for  future  citizenship  by  allowing 
them  to  fight  for  their  own  liberties,  and  educat 
ing  them  through  heroic  influences."*  When 
George  L.  Stearns  was  organizing  the  colored 
regiments  in  Tennessee  in  1863  he  wrote  con 
cerning  his  work,  in  almost  exactly  these  terms; 
and  the  inference  is  plain  that  Hawthorne 

*  The  "Hawthorne  Centenary,"  197. 
386 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

might   have   been   more   of   a   humanitarian   if 
his  early  associations  had  been  different. 

Such  an  original  character  as  Bronson  Alcott 
for  a  next-door  neighbor  could  not  long  escape 
Hawthorne's  penetrating  glance.  Alcott  was 
an  interesting  personality,  perfectly  genuine, 
frank,  kindly  and  imperturbably  good-humored. 
He  had  a  benevolent  aspect,  and  in  general 
appearance  so  much  resembled  the  portraits  of 
Benjamin  Franklin  that  his  ingenious  daughters 
made  use  of  him  in  charades  and  theatricals 
for  that  purpose.  Hawthorne  had  known  him 
many  years  earlier,  and  had  spoken  very  pleas 
antly  of  him  in  his  first  publication  of  "The 
Hall  of  Fantasy."  He  even  said,  "So  calm 
and  gentle  was  he,  so  quiet  in  the  utterance  of 
what  his  soul  brooded  upon,  that  one  might 
readily  conceive  his  Orphic  Sayings  to  well  up 
from  a  fountain  in  his  breast,  which  commu 
nicated  with  the  infinite  abyss  of  thought," 
—  rather  an  optimistic  view  for  Hawthorne. 
Alcott 's  philosophy  had  the  decided  merit, 
which  Herbert  Spencer's  has  not,  of  a  strong 
affirmation  of  a  Great  First  Cause,  and  our 
direct  responsibility  thereto:  but  it  was  chiefly 
the  philosophy  of  Plotinus;  and  his  constant 
reiteration  of  a  "lapse"  in  human  nature  from 
divine  perfection  (which  was  simply  the  Dona- 
llo  phase  expressed  in  logic),  with  the  various 
Tollaries  deduced  from  it,  finally  became  as 
earisome  as  the  harp  with  a  single  string. 
•Tiether  he  troubled  Hawthorne  in  that  way, 

387 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

is  rather  doubtful,  for  even  as  a  hobby-rider, 
Alcott  was  a  man  of  Yankee  shrewdness  and 
considerable  tact.  Rose  Hawthorne  says  that 
"he  once  brought  a  particularly  long  poem  to 
read  aloud  to  my  mother  and  father ;  a  seemingly 
harmless  thing  from  which  they  never  recovered." 
What  poem  this  could  have  been  I  have  no  idea, 
but  in  his  later  years  Alcott  wrote  some  excel 
lent  poetry,  and  those  who  ought  to  know  do 
not  think  that  he  bored  Hawthorne  very  se 
verely.  They  frequently  went  to  walk  together, 
taking  Julian  for  a  make-weight,  and  Hawthorne 
could  easily  have  avoided  this  if  he  had  chosen. 
There  are  times  for  all  of  us  when  our  next-door 
neighbors  prove  a  burden;  and  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  in  most  instances  this  is  reciprocal.* 
Alcott  was  a  romance  character  of  exceptional 
value,  and  Hawthorne  recognized  this,  but  did  not 
succeed  in  inventing  a  plot  that  would  suit  the 
subject.  The  only  one  of  Hawthorne's  pre 
paratory  sketches  given  to  the  public  —  in  which 
we  see  his  genius  in  the  "midmost  heat  of  com 
position" — supposes  a  household  in  which  an 
old  man  keeps  a  crab-spider  for  a  pet,  a  deadly 
poisonous  creature;  and  in  the  same  family 
there  is  a  boy  whose  fortunes  will  be  mysteri 
ously  affected  in  some  manner  by  this  dangerous 

*  Rose  Hawthorne,  however,  writes  charmingly  of  the 
Alcotts.  Take  this  swift  sketch,  among  others:  "I  imagine 
his  slightly  stooping,  yet  tall  and  well-grown  figure,  clothed 
in  black,  and  with  a  picturesque  straw  hat,  twining  itself  in 
and  out  of  forest  aisles,  or  craftily  returning  home  with 
gargoyle-like  stems  over  his  shoulders." 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

insect.  He  did  not  proceed  sufficiently  to  in 
dicate  for  us  how  this  would  turn  out,  but  he 
closes  the  sketch  with  the  significant  remark, 
"In  person  and  figure  Mr.  Alcott";  from  which 
it  may  be  inferred  that  the  crab-spider  was 
intended  to  symbolize  Alcott 's  philosophy,  and 
the  catastrophe  of  the  romance  would  naturally 
result  from  the  unhealthy  mental  atmosphere 
in  which  the  boy  grew  up, — a  catastrophe 
which  in  Alcott 's  family  was  averted  by  the 
practical  sagacity  of  his  daughters.  The  idea, 
however,  became  modified  in  its  application. 
It  is  with  regret  that  we  do  not  allot  a  larger 
space  to  this  important  sketch,  for  it  is  clearly 
an  original  study  (like  an  artist's  drawing)  of 
the  unfinished  romance  which  was  published 
in  1883  under  the  title  of  "  Doctor  Grimshawe's 
Secret."  Long  lost  sight  of  in  the  mass  of 
Hawthorne's  manuscripts,  this  last  of  his  post 
humous  works  was  reviewed  by  the  critics 
with  some  incredulity,  and  Lathrop  had  the 
hardihood  to  publicly  assert  that  no  such  ro 
mance  by  Hawthorne's  pen  existed,  thereby 
casting  a  gratuitous  slander  on  his  own  brother- 
in-law.  We  may  have  our  doubts  in  regard  to 
the  authorship  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  for  we 
have  no  absolute  standard  by  which  to  judge  of 
Shakespeare's  style,  but  the  "style,  the  matter, 
and  the  drift"  of  "Doctor  Grimshawe's  Secret" 
are  so  essentially  Hawthornish  that  a  person 
experienced  in  judging  of  such  matters  should 
not  hesitate  long  in  deciding  that  it  belongs 
in  the  same  category  with  "Fanshawe"  and 

389 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

"The  Dolliver  Romance."  It  is  even  possible 
to  determine,  from  certain  peculiarities  in  its 
style,  the  exact  period  at  which  it  was  written; 
which  must  have  been  shortly  after  Hawthorne's 
return  from  Europe.  In  addition  to  this,  if 
further  evidence  were  required,  its  close  rela 
tionship  to  the  aforementioned  sketch  is  a 
fact  which  no  sophistry  can  reason  away.* 

The  bloody  footstep  suggested  to  Hawthorne 
by  the  antediluvian  print  in  the  stone  step  at 
Smithell's  Hall,  in  Lancashire,  serves  as  the 
key-note  of  this  romance;  but  the  eccentric 
recluse,  the  big  crab-spider,  the  orphaned  grand 
child,  and  even  Bronson  Alcott  also  appear  in 
it.  Alcott,  however, — and  his  identity  cannot 
be  mistaken, — does  not  play  the  leading  part 
in  the  piece,  but  comes  in  at  the  fifth  chapter, 
only  to  disappear  mysteriously  in  the  eighth; 
the  orphan  boy  is  companioned  by  a  girl  of 
equal  age,  and  these  two  bright  spirits,  mutually 
sustaining  each  other,  cast  a  radiance  over  the 
old  Doctor  in  his  dusty,  frowsy,  cobwebby  study, 
which  brings  out  the  external  appearance  and 
internal  peculiarities  of  the  man,  in  the  most 
vivid  manner.  The  dispositions  and  appear 
ances  of  the  two  children  are  also  contrasted, 
as  Raphael  might  have  drawn  and  contrasted 
them,  if  he  had  painted  a  picture  on  a  similar 
subject. 

The  crab -spider  is  one  of  the  most  horrible 
of  Nature's  creations.  Hawthorne  saw  one  in 

*  This  sketch  was  published  in  the  Century,  January, 
1883. 

390 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

the  British  Museum  and  it  seems  to  have  haunted 
his  imagination  ever  afterward.  Why  the 
creature  should  have  been  introduced  into  this 
romance  is  not  very  clear,  for  it  plays  no  part 
in  the  development  of  the  plot.  The  spider 
hangs  suspended  over  the  old  Doctor's  head 
like  the  sword  of  Damocles,  and  one  would  ex 
pect  it  to  descend  at  the  proper  moment  in  the 
narrative,  and  make  an  end  of  him  with  its 
nippers;  but  Doctor  Grimshawe  dies  a  com 
paratively  natural  death,  and  the  desiccated 
body  of  the  spider  is  found  still  clinging  to  the 
web  above  him.  The  man  and  the  insect  were 
too  closely  akin  in  the  modes  and  purposes  of 
their  lives  for  either  to  outlast  the  other.  There 
is  nothing  abnormal  in  the  fact  of  Doctor  Grim 
shawe 's  possessing  this  dangerous  pet;  for  all 
kinds  of  poisonous  creatures  have  a  well-known 
fascination  for  the  medical  profession.  Doctor 
Holmes  amused  himself  with  a  rattlesnake. 

In  spite  of  its  unpleasant  associations  with 
spiders  and  blood-stains,  "Doctor  Grimshawe 's 
Secret"  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  Haw 
thorne's  works,  containing  much  of  his  finest 
thought  and  most  characteristic  description. 
The  portrait  of  the  grouty  old  Doctor  himself 
has  a  solidity  of  impast  like  Shakespeare's 
Falstaff,  and  the  grave-digger,  who  has  sur 
vived  from  colonial  times,  carries  us  back  in 
voluntarily  to  the  burial  scene  in  "  Hamlet. " 
Alcott,  whose  name  is  changed  to  Colcord,  is 
not  treated  realistically,  but  rather  idealized 
in  such  kindly  sympathetic  manner  as  might 

391 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

prevent  all  possibility  of  offence  at  the  artistic 
theft  of  his  personality.  The  plot,  too,  is  a 
most  ingenious  one,  turning  and  winding  like 
a  hare,  and  even  diving  out  of  sight  for  a  time ; 
but  only  to  reappear  again,  as  the  school-master 
Colcord  does,  with  a  full  and  satisfactory  ex 
planation  of  its  mysterious  course.  To  judge 
from  the  appearance  of  the  manuscript,  this 
romance  was  written  very  rapidly,  and  there 
are  places  in  the  text  which  intimate  this;  but 
it  vies  in  power  with  "The  Scarlet  Letter," 
and  why  Hawthorne  should  have  become  dis 
satisfied  with  it, — why  he  should  have  failed 
to  complete,  revise,  and  publish  it — can  only 
be  accounted  for  by  the  mental  or  nervous 
depression  which  was  now  fastening  itself  upon 
him. 

It  is  noticeable,  however,  that  where  the 
plot  is  transferred  to  English  ground  Hawthorne's 
writing  has  much  the  same  tone  and  quality 
that  we  find  in  "Our  Old  Home."  External 
appearances  seem  to  impede  his  insight  there; 
but  this  is  additional  proof  of  the  authenticity 
of  the  work.* 

vShortly  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  Haw 
thorne  went  with  his  boy  to  recuperate  at 
Beverly  Farms,  leaving  his  wife  and  daughters 
at  the  Wayside,  and  the  letters  which  passed 
between  these  two  divisions  of  the  family, 

*  There  are  many  other  evidences;  such  as,  "after-dinner 
speeches  on  the  necessity  of  friendly  relations  between 
England  and  the  United  States,"  and  "the  whistling  of 
the  railway  train,  two  or  three  times  a  day. " 

392 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

during  his  absence,  give  some  very  pretty 
glimpses  of  their  idyllic  summer  life.  Mrs. 
Hawthorne  ''cultivated  her  garden,"  and  gave 
drawing  lessons  to  the  neighbors'  children, 
while  her  husband,  forty  miles  away,  was  fishing 
and  bathing.  The  Beverly  shore  has  not  a 
stimulating  climate,  but  is  very  attractive  in 
summer  to  those  who  do  not  mind  a  few  sultry 
nights  from  land  breezes.  It  was  near  enough  to 
Salem  for  Hawthorne  to  revive  the  reminiscences 
of  his  youth  (which  become  more  and  more 
precious  after  the  age  of  fifty),  without  obtrud 
ing  himself  on  the  gaze  of  his  former  townsmen 
or  of  the  young  lady  "who  wished  she  could 
poison  him.  "*  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  he  saw 
something  of  his  sister  Elizabeth  again,  the  last 
remnant  of  his  mother's  household,  who  for 
some  inscrutable  reason  had  never  visited  him 
at  Concord. 

We  note  here  a  curious  circumstance ;  namely, 
that  Hawthorne  appears  to  have  lost  the  art 
of  writing  short  sketches.  It  will  be  recollected 
that  twenty  years  earlier  he  did  not  feel  equal 
to  anything  beyond  this,  and  that  it  cost  him 
a  strenuous  effort  to  escape  from  the  habit. 
Now  when  he  would  have  liked  to  return  to 
that  class  of  composition  he  could  not  do  so. 
Fields  would  have  welcomed  anything  from  his 
pen  (so  severe  a  critic  he  was  of  himself) ,  but 
his  name  does  not  appear  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
from  July,  1861,  to  June,  1862,  and  it  cannot 

*  W.  D.  Howells'  Memoirs. 
393 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

be  doubted  that  with  the  education  of  his  son 
before  him,  the  remuneration  would  have  been 
welcome.  It  was  not  until  nearly  a  year  later 
that  he  conceived  the  idea  of  cutting  his  English 
Note-book  into  sections,  and  publishing  them 
as  magazine  articles. 

From  this  time  forth,  one  discouragement 
followed  another.  In  the  autumn  of  1861  the 
illness  of  his  daughter,  which  he  had  expected 
and  predicted,  came  to  pass  in  a  violent  form. 
The  old  Roman  virus,  kept  under  in  her  blood, 
for  a  time,  by  continual  changes  of  air  and 
climate,  at  last  gained  the  mastery,  and  brought 
her  once  more  in  danger  of  her  life.  She  had 
to  be  removed  to  the  house  of  her  aunt,  Mrs. 
Mann,  who  lived  in  the  centre  of  the  town,  on 
account  of  her  father's  nerves,  so  that  the 
Concord  doctor  could  attend  her  at  night  when 
necessary.  It  was  the  severest  and  most  pro 
tracted  case  of  fever  that  the  physician  had  ever 
known  to  be  followed  by  a  recovery.  Miss  Una 
did  recover,  but  the  mental  strain  upon  her 
father  was  even  more  exhausting  than  that 
which  her  previous  illness  had  caused,  and  he 
was  not  in  an  equal  condition  to  bear  it. 

"Septimius  Felton"  may  have  been  written 
about  this  time  (perhaps  during  his  daughter's 
convalescence),  but  his  family  knew  nothing 
of  it,  until  they  discovered  the  manuscript  after 
his  death.  When  it  was  published  ten  years 
later,  the  poet  Whittier  spoke  of  it  as  a  failure, 
and  Hawthorne  would  seem  to  have  considered 
it  so;  for  he  left  it  in  an  unfinished  condition, 

394 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

and  immediately  began  a  different  story  on  the 
same  theme, — the  elixir  of  life.  It  has  no  con 
nection  with  the  sketch  already  mentioned, 
in  which  Alcott's  personality  becomes  the 
mainspring,  but  with  another  abortive  romance, 
called  "The  Ancestral  Footstep,"  which  Haw 
thorne  commenced  while  he  was  in  England. 
It  is  invaluable  for  the  light  it  throws  on  his 
method  of  working.  Descriptive  passages  are 
mentioned  in  it  "to  be  inserted"  at  a  later  time, 
meanwhile  concentrating  his  energy  on  more 
important  portions  of  the  narrative.  Half 
way  through  the  story  he  changed  his  original 
plan,  transforming  the  young  woman  who 
previously  had  been  Septimius's  sweetheart  to 
Septimius's  sister;  and  it  may  have  been  the 
difficulty  of  adjusting  this  change  to  the  portion 
previously  written,  that  discouraged  Hawthorne 
from  completing  the  romance.  But  the  work 
suffers  also  from  a  tendency  to  exaggeration. 
The  name  of  Hagburn  is  unpleasantly  realistic, 
and  Doctor  Portsoaken,  with  his  canopy  of 
spider-webs  hanging  in  noisome  festoons  above 
his  head,  is  closely  akin  to  the  repulsive.  The 
amateur  critic  who  averred  that  he  could  not 
read  Hawthorne  without  feeling  a  sensation 
as  if  cobwebs  were  drawn  across  his  face,  must 
have  had  "Septimius  Felton"  in  mind.  Yet 
there  are  refreshing  passages  in  it,  and  the 
youthful  English  officer  who  kisses  Septimius's 
sweetheart  before  his  eyes,  and  afterward  fights 
an  impromptu  duel  with  him,  dying  as  cheerfully 
as  he  had  lived,  is  an  orginal  and  charming 

395 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

character.  The  scene  of  the  story  has  a  peculiar 
interest,  from  the  fact  that  it  is  laid  at  Haw 
thorne's  own  door;  the  Feltons  are  supposed 
to  have  lived  at  the  Wayside  and  the  Hagburns 
in  the  Alcott  house. 

The  firm  of  Ticknor  &  Fields  now  began  to 
feel  anxious  on  Hawthorne's  account,  and  the 
last  of  the  winter  the  senior  partner  proposed 
a  journey  to  Washington,  which  was  accordingly 
accomplished  in  the  second  week  of  March. 
Horatio  Bridge  was  now  chief  of  a  bureau  in 
the  Navy  Department,  and  was  well  qualified 
to  obtain  for  his  veteran  friend  an  inside  position 
for  whatever  happened  to  be  going  on.  In  the 
midst  of  the  turmoil  and  excitement  of  war, 
Hawthorne  attracted  as  much  attention  as 
the  arrival  of  a  new  ambassador  from  Great 
Britain.  Secretary  Stanton  appointed  him  on  a 
civil  commission  to  report  concerning  the  con 
dition  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  He  was 
introduced  to  President  Lincoln,  and  made 
excursions  to  Harper's  Ferry  and  Fortress 
Monroe.  Concerning  General  McClellan,  he 
wrote  to  his  daughter  on  March  1 6 : 

"The  outcry  opened  against  Gen.  McClellan, 
since  the  enemy's  retreat  from  Manassas,  is 
really  terrible,  and  almost  universal;  because 
it  is  found  that  we  might  have  taken  their 
fortifications  with  perfect  ease  six  months  ago, 
they  being  defended  chiefly  by  wooden  guns. 
Unless  he  achieves  something  wonderful  within 
a  week,  he  will  be  removed  from  command, 
at  least  I  hope  so;  I  never  did  more  than  half 

396 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

believe  in  him.  By  a  message  from  the  State 
Department,  I  have  reason  to  think  that  there 
is  money  enough  due  me  from  the  government 
to  pay  the  expenses  of  my  journey.  I  think 
the  public  buildings  are  as  fine,  if  not  finer, 
than  anything  we  saw  in  Europe.  "  * 

General  McClellan  was  not  a  great  man,  and 
Hawthorne's  opinion  of  him  is  more  significant 
from  the  fact  that  at  that  time  McClellan  was 
expected  to  be  the  Joshua  who  would  lead  the 
Democratic  party  out  of  its  wilderness.  On 
his  return  to  Concord,  Hawthorne  prepared  a 
commentary  on  what  he  had  seen  and  heard 
at  the  seat  of  war,  and  sent  it  to  the  Atlantic 
Monthly;  but,  although  patriotic  enough,  his 
melancholy  humor  was  prominent  in  it,  and 
Fields  particularly  protested  against  his  refer 
ring  to  President  Lincoln  as  "Old  Abe,"  al 
though  the  President  was  almost  universally 
called  so  in  Washington;  and  the  consequence 
of  this  was  that  Hawthorne  eliminated  every 
thing  that  he  had  written  about  Lincoln  in  his 
account, — which  might  be  called  "  dehamletiz- 
ing"  the  subject.  In  addition  to  this  he  wrote  a 
number  of  foot-notes  purporting  to  come  from 
the  editor,  but  really  intended  to  counteract 
the  unpopularity  of  certain  statements  in  the 
text.  This  was  not  done  with  any  intention 
to  deceive,  but,  with  the  exception  of  Emerson 
and  a  few  others  who  could  always  recognize 
Hawthorne's  style,  the  readers  of  the  Atlantic 

*  J.    Hawthorne,   ii.    309. 
397 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

supposed  that  these  foot-notes  were  written 
by  either  James  T.  Fields  or  James  Russell 
Lowell,  who  had  been  until  recently  the  editor 
of  the  Magazine, — a  practical  joke  which  Haw 
thorne  enjoyed  immensely  when  it  was  discovered 
to  him. 

This  contribution,  essay,  or  whatever  it  may 
be  called,  had  only  a  temporary  value,  but  it 
contained  a  prediction,  which  has  been  often 
recollected  in  Hawthorne's  favor;  namely,  that 
after  the  war  was  over  "one  bullet-headed 
general  after  another  would  succeed  to  the 
presidential  chair."  In  fact,  five  generals, 
whether  bullet-headed  or  not,  followed  after 
Lincoln  and  Johnson  ;  and  then  the  sequence 
came  to  an  end  apparently  because  the  supply 
of  politician  generals  was  exhausted.  Cer 
tainly  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  yields  to  no  other 
in  admiration  for  military  glory. 

Fields  afterward  published  Hawthorne's  mon 
ograph  on  President  Lincoln,  and,  although  it 
is  rather  an  unsympathetic  statement  of  the 
man,  it  remains  the  only  authentic  pen-and-ink 
sketch  that  we  have  of  him.  Most  important 
is  his  recognition  of  Lincoln  as  "essentially  a 
Yankee"  in  appearance  and  character;  for  it 
has  only  recently  been  discovered  that  Lincoln 
was  descended  from  an  old  New  England  family, 
and  that  his  ancestors  first  emigrated  to  Virginia 
and  afterward  to  Kentucky.*  Hawthorne  says 
of  him: 

*  Essay  On  Lincoln  in  "True  Republicanism." 
398 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

"If  put  to  guess  his  calling  and  livelihood,  I 
should  have  taken  him  for  a  country  school 
master  as  soon  as  anything  else.*  He  was 
dressed  in  a  rusty  black  frock-coat  and  panta 
loons,  unbrushed,  and  worn  so  faithfully  that 
the  suit  had  adapted  itself  to  the  curves  and 
angularities  of  his  figure,  and  had  grown  to  be 
the  outer  skin  of  the  man.  He  had  shabby 
slippers  on  his  feet.  His  hair  was  black,  still 
unmixed  with  gray,  stiff,  somewhat  bushy, 
and  had  apparently  been  acquainted  with 
neither  brush  nor  comb  that  morning,  after  the 
disarrangement  of  the  pillow ;  and  as  to  a  night 
cap,  Uncle  Abe  probably  knows  nothing  of  such 
effeminacies.  His  complexion  is  dark  and  sallow, 
betokening,  I  fear,  an  insalubrious  atmosphere 
around  the  White  House;  he  has  thick  black 
eyebrows  and  impending  brow ;  his  nose  is  large, 
and  the  lines  about  his  mouth  are  very  strongly 
defined. 

"The  whole  physiognomy  is  as  coarse  a  one 
as  you  would  meet  anywhere  in  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  States ;  but,  withal,  it  is  redeemed, 
illuminated,  softened,  and  brightened  by  a 
kindly  though  serious  look  out  of  his  eyes, 
and  an  expression  of  homely  sagacity,  that 
seems  weighted  with  rich  results  of  village 
experience.  A  great  deal  of  native  sense;  no 
bookish  cultivation,  no  refinement;  honest  at 
heart,  and  thoroughly  so,  and  yet,  in  some 
sort,  sly, — at  least,  endowed  with  a  sort  of  tact 


The  country  school-master  of  that  time. — Ed. 
399 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

and  wisdom  that  are  akin  to  craft  .  .  .  But 
on  the  whole,  I  liked  this  sallow,  queer,  saga 
cious  visage,  with  the  homely  human  sympathies 
that  warmed  it;  and,  for  my  small  share  in  the 
matter,  would  as  lief  have  Uncle  Abe  for  a 
ruler  as  any  man  whom  it  would  have  been 
practicable  to  put  in  his  place. "  * 

This  is  not  a  flattered  portrait,  like  those  by 
Lincoln's  political  biographers;  neither  is  it 
an  idealized  likeness,  such  as  we  may  imagine 
him  delivering  his  Gettysburg  Address.  It  is 
rather  an  external  description  of  the  man,  but 
it  is,  after  all,  Lincoln  as  he  appeared  in  the 
White  House  to  the  innumerable  visitors,  who, 
as  sovereign  American  citizens,  believed  they 
had  a  right  to  an  interview  with  the  people's 
distinguished  servant. 

Hawthorne's  European  letter-bag  in  1862  is 
chiefly  interesting  for  Henry  Blight's  state 
ment  that  the  English  people  might  have  more 
sympathy  with  the  Union  cause  in  the  War 
if  they  could  understand  clearly  what  the 
national  government  was  fighting  for;  and  that 
Lord  Houghton  and  Thomas  Hughes  were  the 
only  two  men  he  had  met  who  heartily  supported 
the  Northern  side.  Perhaps  Mr.  Bright  would 
have  found  it  equally  as  difficult  to  explain 
why  the  British  Government  should  have  made 
war  upon  Napoleon  for  twelve  consecutive  years. 

Henry  Bright,  moreover,  seemed  to  be  quite  as 
much  interested  in  a  new  American  poet,  named 


*  "  Yesterdays  with  Authors,"  99. 
400 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

J.  G.  Holland,  and  his  poem  called  "  Bitter- 
Sweet. "  Lord  Hough  ton  agreed  with  him  that 
it  was  a  very  remarkable  poem,  and  they  wished 
to  know  what  Hawthorne  could  tell  them  about 
its  author.  As  Holland  was  not  recognized  as 
a  poet  by  the  Saturday  Club,  Hawthorne's 
answer  on  this  point  would  be  very  valuable 
if  we  could  only  obtain  a  sight  of  it.  Holland 
was  in  certain  respects  the  counterpart  of 
Martin  F.  Tupper. 

In  the  summer  of  this  year  Hawthorne  went 
to  West  Goldsboro',  Maine,  an  unimportant 
place  opposite  Mount  Desert  Island,  taking 
Julian  with  him;  a  place  with  a  stimulating 
climate  but  a  rather  foggy  atmosphere.  He 
must  have  gone  there  for  his  health,  and  it  is 
pathetic  to  see  how  the  change  of  climate  braced 
him  up  at  first,  so  that  he  even  made  the  com 
mencement  of  a  new  diary,  and  then,  as  always 
happens  in  such  cases,  it  let  him  down  again 
to  where  he  was  before.  He  did  not  complain, 
but  he  felt  that  something  was  wrong  with  him 
and  he  could  not  tell  what  it  was. 

Wherever  he  went  in  passing  through  the 
civilized  portion  of  Maine,  he  found  the  country 
astir  with  recruits  who  had  volunteered  for 
the  war,  so  that  it  seemed  as  if  that  were  the 
only  subject  which  occupied  men's  minds. 
He  says  of  this  in  his  journal: 

"  I  doubt  whether  any  people  was  ever 
actuated  by  a  more  genuine  and  disinterested 
public  spirit;  though,  of  course,  it  is  not  un 
alloyed  with  baser  motives  and  tendencies. 
26  401 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

We  met  a  train  of  cars  with  a  regiment  or  two 
just  starting  for  the  South,  and  apparently 
in  high  spirits.  Everywhere  some  insignia  of 
soldiership  were  to  be  seen, — bright  buttons, 
a  red  stripe  down  the  trousers,  a  military  cap, 
and  sometimes  a  round-shouldered  bumpkin 
in  the  entire  uniform.  They  require  a  great 
deal  to  give  them  the  aspect  of  soldiers;  indeed, 
it  seems  as  if  they  needed  to  have  a  good  deal 
taken  away  and  added,  like  the  rough  clay  of  a 
sculptor  as  it  grows  to  be  a  model. " 

Such  is  the  last  entry  in  his  journal.  Haw 
thorne  was  not  carried  off  his  feet  by  the  ex 
citement  of  the  time,  but  looked  calmly  on 
while  others  expended  their  patriotism  in  hur 
rahing  for  the  Union.  What  he  remarks  con 
cerning  the  volunteers  was.  perfectly  true 
Men  cannot  change  their  profession  in  a  day, 
and  soldiers  are  not  to  be  made  out  of  farmers' 
boys  and  store  clerks  simply  by  clothing  them 
in  uniform,  no  matter  how  much  courage  they 
may  have.  War  is  a  profession  like  other 
professions,  and  requires  the  severest  training  of 
them  all. 


402 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

IMMORTALITY 

IN  the  autumn  of  1862  there  was  great  excite 
ment  in  Massachusetts.  President  Lincoln  had 
issued  his  premonitory  proclamation  of  emanci 
pation,  and  Harvard  College  was  stirred  to  its 
academic  depths.  Professor  Joel  Parker,  of 
the  Law  School,  pronounced  Lincoln's  action 
unconstitutional,  subversive  of  the  rights  of 
property,  and  a  most  dangerous  precedent.  With 
Charles  Eliot  Norton  and  other  American  Tories, 
Parker  headed  a  movement  for  the  organization 
of  a  People's  Party,  which  had  for  its  immediate 
object  the  defeat  of  Andrew  for  Governor  and 
the  relegation  of  Sumner  to  private  life.  The 
first  they  could  hardly  expect  to  accomplish, 
but  it  was  hoped  that  a  sufficient  number  of 
conservative  representatives  would  be  elected 
to  the  Legislature  to  replace  Sumner  by  a 
Republican,  who  would  be  more  to  their  own 
minds;  and  they  would  be  willing  to  compro 
mise  on  such  a  candidate  as  Honorable  E.  R. 
Hoar, — although  Judge  Hoar  was  innocent  of 
this  himself  and  was  quite  as  strongly  anti- 
slavery  as  Sumner.  The  movement  came  to 
nothing,  as  commonly  happens  with  political 
movements  that  originate  in  universities,  but 
for  the  time  being  it  caused  a  great  commotion 
and  nowhere  more  so  than  in  the  town  of  Con- 

403 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

cord.  Emerson  was  never  more  emphatic  than 
in  demanding  the  re-election  of  Andrew  and 
Sumner. 

How  Hawthorne  felt  about  this  and  how  he 
voted  in  November,  can  only  be  conjectured 
by  certain  indications,  slight,  it  is  true,  but  all 
pointing  in  one  direction.  As  long  since  ex 
plained,  he  entertained  no  very  friendly  feeling 
toward  the  Cotton  Whigs;  his  letter  to  his 
daughter  concerning  Gen.  McClellan,  who  set 
himself  against  the  proclamation  and  was  re 
moved  in  consequence,  should  be  taken  into 
consideration;  and  still  more  significant  is  the 
letter  to  Horatio  Bridge,  in  which  Hawthorne 
proposed  the  enlistment  of  negro  soldiers. 
Doctor  George  B.  Loring,  of  Salem,  always  a 
loyal  friend  to  the  Hawthorne  family,  came  to 
Concord  in  September  to  deliver  an  address  at 
the  annual  cattle-show,  and  visited  at  the  Way 
side.  He  had  left  the  Democratic  party  and 
become  a  member  of  the  Bird  Club,  which  was 
then  the  centre  of  political  influence  in  the  State. 
As  a  matter  of  course  he  explained  his  new 
position  to  Hawthorne.  He  had  long  felt 
attracted  to  the  Republican  party,  and  but  for 
his  influential  position  among  his  fellow-Demo 
crats,  he  would  have  joined  it  sooner.  Parties 
were  being  reconstructed.  Half  the  Democrats 
had  become  Republicans;  and  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  Whigs  had  joined  the  Democratic 
party.  The  interests  of  the  Republic  were 
in  the  hands  of  the  Republican  party  and 
it  ought  to  be  supported.  We  can  believe  that 

404 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Hawthorne  listened  to  him  with  close  atten 
tion. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1862  that  I  first  became 
well  acquainted  with  the  Hawthorne  family, 
which  seemed  to  exist  in  an  atmosphere  of 
purity  and  refinement  derived  from  the  man's 
own  genius.  Julian  visited  me  at  our  house  in 
Medford  during  the  early  summer,  where  he 
made  great  havoc  among  the  small  fruits  of  the 
season.  We  boxed,  fenced,  skated,  played 
cricket  and  studied  Cicero  together.  As  my 
father  was  one  of  the  most  revolutionary  of  the 
Free-Soilers,  this  may  have  amused  Hawthorne 
as  an  instance  of  the  Montagues  and  Capulets; 
but  I  found  much  sympathy  with  my  political 
notions  in  his  household.  When  the  first  of 
January  came  there  was  a  grand  celebration  of 
the  Emancipation  in  Boston  Music  Hall.  Mrs. 
Hawthorne  and  Una  were  very  desirous  to 
attend  it,  and  I  believe  they  both  did  so — Miss 
Una  at  all  events.  If  Mrs.  Hawthorne's  opinions 
could  be  taken  in  any  sense  as  a  reflection  of 
her  husband's  mind,  he  was  certainly  drifting 
away  from  his  old  associations. 

In  October,  1862,  Hawthorne  published  the 
first  of  a  series  of  studies  from  English  life  and 
scenery,  taken  chiefly  from  his  Note-book,  and 
he  continued  this  at  intervals  until  the  following 
summer,  when  Ticknor  &  Fields  brought  them 
out  with  some  additions  in  book  form  as  '  *  Our 
Old  Home;"  a  volume  which  has  already  been 
considered  in  these  pages.  It  was  not  a  favorable 
time  for  the  publication  of  classic  literature, 

405 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

for  the  whole  population  of  the  United  States 
was  in  a  ferment;  and  moreover  the  unfriendly 
attitude  of  the  English  educated  classes  toward 
the  cause  of  the  Union,  was  beginning  to  have 
its  effect  with  us.  In  truth  it  seemed  rather 
inconsistent  that  the  philanthropic  Gladstone, 
who  had  always  professed  himself  the  friend  of 
freedom,  should  glorify  Jefferson  Davis  as  the 
founder  of  a  new  nation — a  republic  of  slave 
holders.  In  addition  to  this,  Hawthorne  insisted 
on  dedicating  the  volume  to  President  Pierce,  and 
when  his  publishers  protested  that  this  would 
tend  to  make  the  book  unpopular,  he  replied  in  a 
spirited  manner,  that  if  that  was  the  case  it  was 
all  the  more  reason  why  Pierce 's  friends  should 
signify  their  continued  confidence  in  him.  This 
may  have  made  little  difference,  however,  for 
comparatively  few  readers  notice  the  dedication 
of  a  book  until  after  they  have  purchased  it; 
and  we  like  Hawthorne  for  his  firmness  in  this 
instance. 

In  England  the  book  produced  a  sensation  of 
the  unfavorable  sort.  Hawthorne's  attack  on 
the  rotundity  of  the  English  ladies,  whatever 
may  have  been  his  reason  for  it,  was,  to  speak 
reservedly,  somewhat  lacking  in  delicacy.  It 
stirred  up  a  swarm  of  newspaper  enemies  against 
him;  and  proved  a  severe  strain  to  the  attach 
ment  of  his  friends  there.  Henry  Bright  wrote 
to  him: 

"It  really  was  too  bad,  some  of  the  things  you  say.  You 
talk  like  a  cannibal.  Mrs.  Hey  wood  says  to  my  mother, 
'I  really  believe  you  and  I  were  the  only  ladies  he  knew 

406 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

in  Liverpool,  and  we  are  not  like  beefsteaks. '     So  all  the 
ladies  are  furious."* 

But  Hawthorne  was  no  longer  what  he  had  been, 
and  allowance  should  be  made  for  this. 

Hawthorne's  chief  interest  at  this  time, 
however,  lay  in  the  preparation  of  his  son  for 
Harvard  College.  Julian  was  sixteen  in  August 
and,  considering  the  itinerant  life  he  had  lived, 
well  advanced  in  his  studies.  He  was  the  best- 
behaved  boy  in  Concord,  in  school  or  out,  and  an 
industrious  though  not  ambitious  scholar.  He 
was  strong,  vigorous  and  manly ;  and  his  parents 
had  sufficient  reason  to  be  proud  of  him.  To 
expect  him,  however,  to  enter  Harvard  College 
at  the  age  of  seventeen  was  somewhat  unreason 
able.  His  father  had  entered  Bowdoin  at  that 
age,  but  the  requirements  at  Harvard  were 
much  more  severe  than  at  Bowdoin;  enough  to 
make  a  difference  of  at  least  one  year  in  the  age 
of  the  applicant.  For  a  boy  to  enter  college 
in  a  half-fitted  condition  is  simply  to  make  a 
false  start  in  life,  for  he  is  only  too  likely  to 
become  discouraged,  and  either  to  drag  along 
at  the  foot  of  the  class  or  to  lose  his  place  in  it 
altogether.  Hawthorne  may  have  felt  that 
the  end  of  earthly  affairs  was  close  upon  him, 
and  wished  to  see  his  son  started  on  the  right 
road  before  that  came;  but  Emerson  also  had 
an  interest  in  having  Julian  go  to  college  at 
exactly  this  time;  namely,  to  obtain  him  as  a 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  ii.  280.  Good  Mrs.  Alcott  also  objected 
stoutly  to  the  reflections  on  her  sex. 

407 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

chum  for  his  wife's  nephew,  with  the  advantage 
of  a  tutor's  room  thrown  in  as  an  extra  induce 
ment.  He  advised  Hawthorne  to  place  Julian 
in  charge  of  a  Harvard  professor  who  was 
supposed  to  have  a  sleight-of-hand  faculty 
for  getting  his  pupils  through  the  examinations. 
Julian  worked  bravely,  and  succeeded  in  entering 
Harvard  the  following  July;  but  he  was  nine 
months  (or  a  good  school  year),  younger  than 
the  average  of  his  class. 

Hawthorne  did  not  leave  home  this  summer 
(1863),  and  the  only  letter  we  have  of  his  was 
the  one  to  James  T.  Fields  concerning  the 
dedication  of  "Our  Old  Home,"  which  was 
published  in  the  autumn.  Julian  states  that  his 
father  spent  much  of  his  time  standing  or  walking 
in  his  narrow  garden  before  the  house,  and  look 
ing  wistfully  across  the  meadows  to  Walden 
woods.  His  strength  was  evidently  failing  him, 
yet  he  could  not  explain  why — nor  has  it  ever 
been  explained. 

One  bright  day  in  November  two  of  us  walked 
up  from  Cambridge  with  Julian  and  lunched  at 
his  father's.  Mr.  Hawthorne  received  us  cordially, 
but  in  a  tremulous  manner  that  betrayed  the 
weakness  of  his  nerves.  As  soon  as  Julian  had 
left  the  room,  he  said  to  us,  "  I  suppose  it  would 
be  of  little  use  to  ask  you  young  gentlemen 

what  sort  of  a  scholar  Julian  is."  H 

replied  to  this,  that  we  were  neither  of  us  in 
the  division  with  him,  but  that  he  had  heard 
nothing  unfavorable  in  regard  to  his  recitations ; 
and  I  told  him  that  Julian  went  to  the  gym- 

408 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

nasium  with  me  every  evening,  and  appeared 
to  live  a  very  regular  kind  of  life.  This  seemed 
to  please  Mr.  Hawthorne  very  much,  and  he 
soon  produced  a  decanter  of  port,  and,  his  son 
having  entered  the  room  again,  he  said,  "I 
want  to  teach  Julian  the  taste  of  good  wine, 
so  that  he  will  learn  to  avoid  those  horrible 
punches,  which  I  am  told  you  have  at  Harvard." 
We  all  laughed  greatly  at  this,  which  was  after 
ward  increased  by  Julian's  saying  that  the  only 
punches  he  had  yet  seen  were  those  which  the 
sophomores  gave  us  in  the  foot-ball  fight, — or 
some  such  statement.  It  was  a  bright  occasion 
for  all  of  us,  and  when  Mrs.  Hawthorne  and  her 
daughters  entered  the  room,  such  a  beautiful 
group  as  they  all  formed  together!  And  Haw 
thorne  himself  seemed  ten  years  younger  than 
when  he  first  greeted  us. 

He  was  the  most  distinguished-looking  man 
that  I  ever  beheld,  and  no  sensible  person  could 
meet  him  without  instantly  recognizing  his 
superior  mental  endowment.  His  features  were 
not  only  classic  but  grandly  classic;  and  his 
eyes  large,  dark,  luminous,  unfathomable — 
looking  into  them  was  like  looking  into  a  deep 
well.  His  face  seemed  to  give  a  pictorial  re 
flection  of  whatever  was  taking  place  about 
him;  and  again  became  like  a  transparency 
through  which  one  could  see  dim  vistas  of 
beautiful  objects.  The  changes  of  expression 
on  it  were  like  the  sunshine  and  clouds  of  a 
summer  day — perhaps  thunder  clouds  some 
times,  with  flashes  of  lightning,  which  his  son 

409 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

may  still  remember;    for  where  there  is  a  great 
heart  there  will  always  be  great  heat. 

"THE  DOLLIVER  ROMANCE" 

According  to  James  T.  Fields,  the  ground- 
plan  of  this  work  was  laid  the  preceding  winter, 
but  Hawthorne  became  dissatisfied  with  the 
way  in  which  the  subject  developed  itself  and 
so  set  the  manuscript  aside  until  he  could  come 
to  it  again  with  fresh  inspiration.  With  the 
more  bracing  weather  of  September  he  com 
menced  on  it  again,  and  wrote  during  the  next 
two  months  that  portion  which  we  now  have. 
On  December  i  he  forwarded  two  chapters  to 
Ticknor  &  Fields,  requesting  to  have  them  set 
up  so  that  he  could  see  them  in  print  and  obtain 
a  retrospective  view  of  his  work  before  he 
proceeded  further.  Yet  on  December  15  he 
wrote  again,  saying  that  he  had  not  yet  found 
courage  to  attack  the  proofs,  and  that  all  mental 
exertion  had  become  hateful  to  him.*  He  was 
evidently  feeling  badly,  and  for  the  first  time 
Mrs.  Hawthorne  was  seriously  anxious  for  him. 
Four  days  later  she  wrote  to  Una,  who  was 
visiting  in  Beverly : 

"Papa  is  comfortable  to-day,  but  very  thin  and  pale 
and  weak.  I  give  him  oysters  now.  Hitherto  he  has 
had  only  toasted  crackers  and  lamb  and  beef  tea.  I  am 
very  impatient  that  he  should  see  Dr.  Vanderseude,  but  he 
wants  to  go  to  him  himself,  and  he  cannot  go  till  it  be 
good  weather.  .  .  .  The  splendor  and  pride  of  strength 
in  him  have  succumbed;  but  they  can  be  restored,  I  am 

*  "Yesterdays  with  Authors,"  115. 
410 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

sure.  Meanwhile  he  is  very  nervous  and  delicate;  he  cannot 
bear  anything,  and  he  must  be  handled  like  the  airiest 
Venetian  glass."* 

He  divided  his  time  between  lying  on  a  sofa 
and  sitting  in  an  arm-chair;  and  he  did  not 
seem  very  comfortable  in  either  position.  It 
was  long  since  he  had  attended  meetings  of  the 
Saturday  Club. 

It  is  clear  from  this  that  Hawthorne  had  not 
recently  consulted  a  doctor  concerning  his 
condition,  and  perhaps  not  at  all.  He  may  have 
been  right  enough  in  supposing  that  no  common 
practitioner  could  give  him  help,  but  there  was 
at  that  time  one  of  the  finest  of  physiologists 
in  Boston,  Dr.  Edward  H.  Clark,  who  cured 
hundreds  of  sick  people  every  year,  as  quietly 
and  unostentatiously  as  Dame  Nature  herself. 
He  was  a  graduate  of  the  University  of  Penn 
sylvania,  and  as  such  not  generally  looked  upon 
with  favor  by  the  Boston  medical  profession, 
but  when  Agassiz's  large  brain  gave  way  in 
1868,  Dr.  Brown-Sequard  telegraphed  to  him 
from  Europe  to  consult  Edward  Clark,  and 
Doctor  Clark  so  improved  his  health  that  Agassiz 
afterward  enjoyed  a  number  of  years  of  useful 
work.  Perhaps  he  might  have  accomplished  as 
much  for  Hawthorne;  but  how  was  Hawthorne 
in  his  retired  and  uncommunicative  life  to 
know  of  him?  There  are  decided  advantages  in 
living  in  the  great  world,  and  in  knowing  what 
goes  on  there, — if  one  only  can. 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  ii.  333. 
411 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

It  is  doubtful  if  Hawthorne  ever  opened  the 
proof  of  "The  Dolliver  Romance."  In  Feb 
ruary  he  wrote  to  Fields  that  he  could  not 
possibly  go  on  with  it,  and  as  it  had  already 
been  advertised  for  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  a 
notification  had  to  be  published  concerning  the 
matter,  which  startled  Longfellow,  Whittier  and 
other  old  friends  of  Hawthorne,  who  were  not 
in  the  way  of  knowing  much  about  him.  The 
fragment  that  we  now  have  of  it  was  printed  in 
the  Atlantic  many  years  after  his  death. 

It  was  the  last  expiring  ember  of  Haw 
thorne's  genius,  blazing  up  fitfully  and  mo 
mentarily  with  the  same  brightness  as  of  old, 
and  then  disappearing  like  Hawthorne  himself 
into  the  unknown  and  the  unknowable.  It  is 
a  fragment,  and  yet  it  seems  complete,  for  it 
is  impossible  to  imagine  how  the  story  could 
have  been  continued  beyond  its  present  limits; 
and  Hawthorne  left  no  word  from  which  we 
can  conjecture  his  further  intentions  in  regard 
to  it. 

There  was  an  old  apothecary  in  Concord, 
named  Reynolds,  a  similar  man  to,  but  not  so 
aged  as,  Hawthorne's  Doctor  Dolliver ;  and  he  also 
had  a  son,  a  bright  enterprising  boy, — too  bright 
and  spirited  to  suit  Boston  commercialism, — 
who  went  westward  in  1858  to  seek  his  fortune, 
nor  have  I  ever  heard  of  his  return.  The  child 
Pansie,  frisking  with  her  kitten — a  more  simple, 
ingenuous,  and  self-centred,  but  also  less  sympa 
thetic  nature  than  the  Pearl  of  Hester  Prynne 
— may  have  been  studied  from  Hawthorne's 

412 


or  THE 

UNIVERSIT 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

daughter  Rose.  There  also  lived  at  Concord  in 
Hawthorne's  time  a  man  with  the  title  of  Colonel, 
a  pretentious,  self-satisfied  person,  who  cor 
responded  fairly  to  his  description  of  Colonel 
Dabney,  in  "The  Dolliver  Romance."  Neither 
is  it  singular  that  the  apothecary's  garden  should 
have  bordered  on  a  grave-yard,  for  there  are  two 
old  cemeteries  in  Concord  in  the  very  centre 
of  the  town. 

I  know  of  no  such  portrait  of  an  old  man  as 
Doctor  Dolliver  in  art  or  literature, — except 
perhaps  Tintoretto's  portrait  of  his  aged  self, 
in  the  Louvre.  We  not  only  see  the  customary 
marks  of  age  upon  him,  but  we  feel  them  so 
that  it  seems  as  if  we  grew  old  and  stiff  and 
infirm  as  we  read  of  him;  and  the  internal  life 
of  old  age  is  revealed  to  us,  not  by  confessions 
of  the  man  himself,  but  by  every  word  he  speaks 
and  every  act  he  does  as  if  the  writer  were  a 
skilful  tragedian  upon  the  stage.  It  seems  as 
if  Hawthorne  must  have  felt  all  this  himself 
during  the  last  year  of  his  life,  to  describe  it  so 
vividly;  but  he  ascends  by  these  infirm  steps 
to  loftier  heights  than  ever  before,  and  the 
scene  in  which  he  represents  Doctor  Dolliver 
seated  at  night  before  the  fire  in  his  chamber 
after  Pansie  had  been  put  to  bed,  is  the  noblest 
passage  in  the  whole  cycle  of  Hawthorne's  art; 
one  of  those  rare  passages  written  in  moments 
of  gifted  insight,  when  it  seems  as  if  a  higher 
power  guided  the  writer's  hand.  It  is  given  here 
entire,  for  to  subtract  a  word  from  it  would  be 
an  irreparable  injury. 

413 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

"While  that  music  lasted,  the  old  man  was 
alive  and  happy.  And  there  were  seasons,  it 
might  be,  happier  than  even  these,  when  Pansie 
had  been  kissed  and  put  to  bed,  and  Grandsir 
Dolliver  sat  by  his  fireside  gazing  in  among 
the  massive  coals,  and  absorbing  their  glow 
into  those  cavernous  abysses  with  which  all 
men  communicate.  Hence  come  angels  or 
fiends  into  our  twilight  musings,  according 
as  we  may  have  peopled  them  in  by-gone  years. 
Over  our  friend's  face,  in  the  rosy  flicker  of 
the  fire-gleam,  stole  an  expression  of  repose  and 
perfect  trust  that  made  him  as  beautiful  to 
look  at,  in  his  high-backed  chair,  as  the  child 
Pansie  on  her  pillow;  and  sometimes  the  spirits 
that  were  watching  him  beheld  a  calm  surprise 
draw  slowly  over  his  features  and  brighten 
into  joy,  yet  not  so  vividly  as  to  break  his  even 
ing  quietude.  The  gate  of  heaven  had  been 
kindly  left  ajar,  that  this  forlorn  old  creature 
might  catch  a  glimpse  within.  All  the  night 
afterwards,  he  would  be  semi-conscious  of  an 
intangible  bliss  diffused  through  the  fitful 
lapses  of  an  old  man's  slumber,  and  would  awake, 
at  early  dawn,  with  a  faint  thrilling  of  the 
heart-strings,  as  if  there  had  been  music  just 
now  wandering  over  them." 

So  Jacob  in  the  desert  saw  angels  descending 
and  ascending  on  a  ladder  from  Heaven.  Dis 
couraged,  depressed,  the  door  closed  upon  his 
earthly  hopes,  not  only  for  himself,  but  for  those 
whom  he  loves  much  better  than  himself,  sc 
far  as  he  could  ever  be  a  help  and  a  provi- 

414 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

dence  to  them,  Hawthorne  finds  a  purer  joy 
and  a  higher  hope  in  the  depths  of  his  own 
spirit. 

In  the  second  chapter,  or  fragment,  of  this 
romance,  Doctor  Dolliver,  followed  by  Pansie, 
goes  out  into  the  garden  one  frosty  October 
morning,  and  while  the  apothecary  is  digging 
at  his  herbs,  the  imitative  child,  with  an  in 
stinctive  repulsion  for  everything  strange  and 
morbid,  pulls  up  the  fatal  plant  from  which  the 
elixir  of  life  was  distilled,  and  frightened  at  her 
grandfather's  chiding,  runs  with  it  into  the 
cemetery  where  it  is  lost  among  the  graves  and 
never  seen  again.  This  account  stands  by 
itself,  having  no  direct  connection  with  what 
precedes  or  follows;  but  the  delineation  is  so 
vivid,  the  poetic  element  in  it  so  strong,  that  it 
may  be  said  to  stand  without  assistance,  and 
does  not  require  the  name  of  Hawthorne  to  give 
it  value. 

In  the  conclusion,  the  elixir  of  life  proves  to 
be  an  elixir  of  death;  extremes  meet  and  are 
reconciled.  As  he  says  in  "The  Marble  Faun," 
joy  changes  to  sorrow  and  sorrow  is  laughed 
away;  the  experience  of  both  being  that  which 
is  really  valuable.  Doctor  Dolliver  and  Pansie 
are  figures  for  the  end  and  the  beginning  of 
life;  the  Old  Year  and  the  New.  Such  is  the 
sum  of  Hawthorne's  philosophy — the  ultimate 
goal  of  his  thought.  There  could  have  been  no 
more  fitting  consummation  of  his  work.  The 
cycle  of  his  art  is  complete,  and  death  binds 
the  laurel  round  his  brow. 

415 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

A  HERO'S  END 

After  Hawthorne's  letter  of  February  25, 
Fields  felt  that  he  ought  to  make  an  effort  in  his 
behalf.  Fields's  partner,  W.  D.  Ticknor,  was 
also  ailing,  and  it  was  arranged  that  he  and 
Hawthorne  should  go  on  a  journey  southward 
as  soon  as  the  weather  permitted.  Doctor 
Holmes  was  consulted,  and  the  last  of  March 
Hawthorne  came  to  Boston  and  met  Holmes  at 
Fields's  house.  Holmes  made  an  examination, 
which  was  anything  but  satisfactory  to  his  own 
mind;  in  fact,  he  was  appalled  at  the  condition 
in  which  he  found  his  former  companion  of  the 
Saturday  Club.  "He  was  very  gentle,"  Holmes 
says;  "very  willing  to  answer  questions,  very 
docile  to  such  counsel  as  I  offered  him,  but 
evidently  had  no  hope  of  recovering  his  health. 
He  spoke  as  if  his  work  were  done,  and  he  should 
write  no  more."*  The  doctor,  however,  must 
have  been  mistaken  in  supposing  that  Haw 
thorne  was  suffering  from  the  same  malady 
that  carried  off  General  Grant,  for  no  human 
being  could  die  in  that  manner  without  suffering 
greater  pain  than  Hawthorne  gave  any  indica 
tion  of;  and  the  sedatives  which  Holmes  pre 
scribed  for  him  could  only  have  resulted  in  a 
weakening  of  the  nerves.  He  even  warned  Haw 
thorne  against  the  use  of  alcoholic  stimulants, 
to  which  for  some  time  he  had  been  more  or 
less  accustomed. 

*  Atlantic  Monthly,  July,  1864. 
416 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Hawthorne  and  Ticknor  went  to  New  York, 
and  two  days  later  Ticknor  was  able  to  write 
to  Mrs.  Hawthorne  that  her  husband  appeared 
to  be  much  improved.  How  cruelly  disappoint 
ing  to  meet  him  at  their  own  door  four  days 
later,  haggard,  weary  and  more  dispirited  than 
when  he  had  left  the  Wayside  on  March  26! 
He  had  proceeded  to  Philadelphia  with  Ticknor, 
and  there  at  the  Continental  Hotel  Ticknor 
was  suddenly  seized  with  a  mortal  malady  and 
died  almost  in  Hawthorne's  arms,  before  the 
latter  could  notify  his  family  in  Boston  that  he 
was  ill.  What  a  severe  ordeal  for  a  man  who 
was  strong  and  well,  but  to  a  person  in  Haw 
thorne's  condition  it  was  like  a  thunderbolt. 
Ticknor 's  son  came  to  him  at  once,  and  together 
they  performed  the  necessary  duties  of  the 
occasion,  and  made  their  melancholy  way  home 
ward.  Nothing,  perhaps,  except  a  death  in 
his  own  family,  could  have  had  so  unfavorable 
an  effect  upon  Hawthorne's  condition. 

Some  good  angel  now  notified  Franklin  Pierce 
of  the  serious  posture  of  affairs,  and  he  came  at 
once  to  Concord  to  offer  his  services  in  Haw 
thorne's  behalf.  However,  he  could  propose 
nothing  more  hopeful  than  a  journey  in  the 
uplands  of  New  Hampshire,  and  for  this  it  would 
be  necessary  to  wait  for  settled  weather.  So 
Hawthorne  remained  at  home  for  the  next 
month  without  his  condition  becoming  appar 
ently  either  better  or  worse.  At  length,  on 
May  13,  the  ex-President  returned  and  they 
went  together  the  following  day. 

27  417 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

We  will  not  linger  over  that  leave-taking  on 
the  porch  of  the  Wayside;  so  pathetic,  so  full 
of  tenderness,  even  of  despair,  and  yet  with  a 
slender  ray  of  hope  beneath  the  leaden  cloud  of 
anxiety.  To  Hawthorne  it  must  have  seemed 
even  more  discouraging  than  to  his  wife  and 
children,  though  none  of  them  could  have  sus 
pected  that  the  end  would  be  so  soon. 

On  the  morning  of  May  20,  I  had  just  returned 
from  my  first  recitation  when  Julian  Hawthorne 
appeared  at  my  room  in  the  Massachusetts 
dormitory,  and  said,  like  a  man  gasping  for 
breath,  "My  father  is  dead,  and  I  want  you  to 
come  with  me."  Fields  had  sent  him  word 
through  Professor  Gurney,  who  knew  how  to 
deliver  such  a  message  in  the  kindliest  manner. 
We  went  at  once  to  Fields 's  house  on  Charles 
Street,  where  Mrs.  Fields  gave  Julian  the  little 
information  already  known  to  them  through  a 
dispatch  from  Franklin  Pierce, — that  his  father 
died  during  his  sleep  in  the  night  of  May  18, 
at  the  Pemmigewasset  House,  Plymouth,  New 
Hampshire.  After  this  we  wandered  about 
Boston,  silent  and  aimless,  until  the  afternoon 
train  carried  him  to  Concord.  He  greatly 
dreaded  meeting  the  gaze  of  his  fellow-towns 
men,  and  confessed  that  he  wanted  to  hide 
himself  in  the  woods  like  a  wounded  deer.* 

*  The  passage  in  "A  Fool  of  Nature,"  in  which  he  de 
scribes  Murgatroyd's  discovery  of  his  father's  death,  must 
have  been  a  reminiscence  of  this  time — a  passage  of  the 
finest  genius. 

418 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

On  Wednesday,  May  18,  Hawthorne  and 
Pierce  drove  from  Centre  Harbor  to  Plymouth, 
a  long  and  rather  rough  journey  to  be  taken  in 
a  carriage.  Hawthorne,  however,  did  not  make 
much  complaint  of  this,  nor  did  he  seem  to  be 
unusually  fatigued.  He  retired  to  his  room 
soon  after  nine  o'clock,  and  was  sleeping  com 
fortably  an  hour  later.  Pierce  was  evidently 
nervous  about  him,  for  he  went  in  to  look  at 
him  at  two  in  the  morning,  and  again  at  four; 
and  the  last  time  he  discovered  that  life  was 
extinct.  Hawthorne  had  died  in  his  sleep  as 
quietly  and  peacefully  as  he  had  lived.  There 
is  the  same  mystery  in  his  death  that  there  was 
in  his  life,  and  it  is  difficult  to  assign  either  an 
immediate  or  a  proximate  cause  for  it.  With 
such  a  physique,  and  his  simple,  regular  habits 
of  life,  he  ought  to  have  reached  the  age  of 
ninety.  General  Pierce  believed  that  he  died  of 
paralysis,  and  that  is  the  most  probable  ex 
planation;  but  it  was  not  like  the  usual  cases 
of  paralysis  at  Hawthorne's  age ;  for,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  process  of  disintegration  and  failure 
of  his  powers  had  been  going  on  for  years.  Nor 
did  this  follow,  as  commonly  happens,  a  pro 
tracted  period  of  adversity,  but  it  came  upon 
him  during  the  most  prosperous  portion  of  his 
life.  The  first  ten  years  following  upon  his 
marriage  were  years  of  anxiety,  self-denial  and 
even  hardship ;  but  other  men,  Alcott,  for  example, 
have  suffered  as  much  and  yet  lived  to  a  good 
old  age.  It  may  have  been  "the  old  dull  pain" 
which  Longfellow  associated  with  him,  filing 

419 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

perpetually  on  the  vital  cord.     It  was  part  of 
the  enigmatic  side  of  his  nature. 

The  last  ceremonies  of  respect  to  the  earthly 
remains  of  Hawthorne  were  performed  at  Con 
cord  on  May  23,  1864,  in  the  Unitarian  Church, 
a  commodious  building,*  well  adapted  to  the 
great  concourse  of  mourners  who  gathered 
there  on  this  occasion.  Reverend  James  Freeman 
Clarke,  who  had  united  Hawthorne  and  Sophia 
Peabody  in  marriage  twenty- two  years  before, 
was  now  called  upon  to  preside  over  the  last  act 
in  their  married  life.  The  simple  eloquence  of 
his  address  penetrated  to  the  heart  of  every 
person  present.  "  Hawthorne  had  achieved  a 
twofold  immortality, — and  his  immortality  on 
earth  would  be  a  comforting  presence  to  all  who 
mourned  him.  The  noblest  men  of  the  age  had 
gathered  there,  to  testify  to  his  worth  as  a  man 
as  well  as  to  his  genius  as  a  writer."  Faces  were 
to  be  seen  in  that  assembly  that  were  never 
beheld  in  Concord  before.  Among  these  was  the 
soldierly  figure  and  flashing  eye  of  the  poet 
Whittier.  Longfellow,  Emerson,  Lowell,  Agassiz, 
Alcott  and  Hillard  were  present;  and  ex- 
President  Pierce  shook  hands  with  Judge  Hoar 
over  Hawthorne's  bier.  After  the  services  the 
assembly  of  mourners  proceeded  to  Sleepy 
Hollow  cemetery,  and  there  the  mortal  remains 
of  Hawthorne  were  buried  under  the  pine  trees 
on  the  same  hill-side  where  he  and  Emerson 

*  In  1899  this  building  was  burned  to  the  ground,  and  a 
new  church  has  been  erected  on  the  same  spot. 

420 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

and  Margaret  Fuller  conversed  together  on  the 
summer  afternoon  twenty  years  before.  He 
needs  no  monument,  for  he  has  found  a  place  in 
the  universal  pantheon  of  art  and  literature. 

It  would  seem  advisable  at  this  parting  of 
the  ways  to  say  something  of  Hawthorne's 
religious  convictions.  He  went  as  a  boy  with  his 
mother  and  sisters  to  the  East  Church  in  Salem, 
a  society  of  liberal  tendencies  and  then  on  the 
verge  of  Unitarianism.  All  the  Manning  family 
attended  service  there,  but  at  a  later  time 
Robert  Manning  separated  from  it  and  joined 
an  orthodox  society.  Hawthorne's  mother  and 
his  sister  Louisa  became  Unitarians,  and  at 
Madam  Hawthorne's  death  in  1848  the  funeral 
services  were  conducted  by  Reverend  Thomas 
T.  Stone,  of  the  First  Salem  Church.  It  is 
presumable  that  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  also 
became  a  Unitarian,  so  far  as  he  can  be  con 
sidered  a  sectarian  at  all;  but  certain  elements 
of  the  older  faith  still  remained  in  his  mental 
composition.  It  cannot  be  questioned  that  the 
strong  optimism  in  Emerson's  philosophy  was 
derived  from  Doctor  Channing's  instruction,  and 
it  is  equally  certain  that  Hawthorne  could 
never  agree  to  this.  Whatever  might  be  the 
origin  of  evil  or  its  abstract  value,  he  found  it 
too  potent  an  element  in  human  affairs  to  be 
quietly  reasoned  out  of  existence.  Whatever 
might  be  the  ultimate  purpose  of  Divine  Provi 
dence,  the  witchcraft  prosecutions  were  an 
awful  calamity  to  those  who  were  concerned  in 

421 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

them.  In  this  respect  he  resembled  David  A. 
Wasson,  one  of  the  most  devout  religious  minds, 
who  left  the  church  of  Calvin  (as  it  was  in  his 
time),  without  ever  becoming  a  Unitarian  or  a 
radical.  Miss  Rebecca  Manning  says : 

"I  never  knew  of  Hawthorne's  going  to  church  at  all, 
after  I  remember  about  him,  and  do  not  think  he  was  ever  in 
the  habit  of  going.  I  think  he  may  have  gone  sometimes 
when  he  was  in  England,  but  I  do  not  know  about  it. 
Somewhere  in  Julian  or  Rose  Hawthorne's  reminiscences, 
there  is  mention  made  of  his  reading  family  prayers,  when 
he  was  in  England.  He,  as  also  his  mother  and  sisters  were 
people  of  deeply  religious  natures,  though  not  always  show 
ing  it  by  outward  observances." 

A  Concord  judge  and  an  old  Free-Soil  politician 
once  attended  a  religious  convention,  and  after 
the  business  of  the  day  was  over  they  went  to 
walk  together.  The  politician  confessed  to  the 
judge  that  he  had  no  very  definite  religious 
belief,  for  which  the  judge  thought  he  did  him 
self  great  injustice;  but  is  not  that  the  most 
advanced  and  intelligent  condition  of  a  man's 
religious  faith?  How  can  we  possess  clear  and 
definite  ideas  of  the  grand  mystery  of  Creation? 
Consider  only  this  simple  metaphysical  fact, 
that  space  has  no  limit,  and  that  we  can  neither 
conceive  a  beginning  of  time  nor  imagine  time 
without  a  beginning.  What  is  there  outside  of 
the  universe?  The  brain  reels  as  we  think  of  it. 
The  time  has  gone  by  when  a  man  can  say  to 
himself  definitely,  I  believe  this  or  I  believe  that ; 
but  we  know  at  least  that  we,  "the  creature  of 
a  day,"  cannot  be  the  highest  form  of  intelli 
gence  in  this  wonderful  world.  We  thought  that 

422 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

we  lived  in  solid  bodies,  but  electric  rays  have 
been  discovered  by  which  the  skeletons  inside 
of  us  become  visible.  The  correlation  and  con 
servation  of  forces  brings  us  very  close  to  the 
origin  of  all  force;  and  yet  in  another  sense  we 
are  as  far  off  as  ever  from  the  perception  of  it. 
This  would  seem  to  have  been  also  Hawthorne's 
position  in  regard  to  religious  faith.  What  do 
we  know  of  the  religious  belief  of  Michel  Angelo, 
of  Shakespeare,  or  of  Beethoven?  We  cannot 
doubt  that  they  were  sincerely  and  purely 
religious  men;  but  neither  of  them  made  any 
confession  of  their  faith.  Vittoria  Colonna  may 
have  known  something  of  Michel  Angelo 's 
belief,  but  Vasari  does  not  mention  it;  and 
Beethoven  confessed  it  was  a  subject  that  he 
did  not  like  to  talk  about.  The  deeper  a  man's 
sense  of  the  awe  and  mystery  which  underlies 
Nature,  the  less  he  feels  inclined  to  expose  it  to 
the  public  gaze.  Hawthorne's  own  family  did 
not  know  what  his  religious  opinions  were — 
only  that  he  was  religious.  One  may  imagine 
that  the  reticent  man  would  be  more  reticent  on 
this  subject  than  on  any  other;  but  we  can  feel 
confident  that  at  least  he  was  not  a  sceptic,  for 
the  confirmed  sceptic  inevitably  becomes  a 
chatterer.  He  walks  to  Walden  Pond  with 
Hillard  and  Emerson  on  Sunday,  and  confesses 
his  doubts  as  to  the  utility  of  the  Church  (in 
its  condition  at  that  time) ,  for  spiritual  enlight 
enment  ;  but  in  regard  to  the  great  omnipresent 
fact  of  spirituality  he  has  no  doubt.  In  "The 
Snow  Image"  he  makes  a  statue  come  to  life, 

423 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

and  says  in  conclusion  that  if  a  new  miracle  is 
ever  wrought  in  this  world  it  will  be  in  some 
such  simple  manner  as  he  has  described. 

To  the  poetic  mind,  which  is  after  all  the 
highest  form  of  intellect,  the  grand  fact  of 
existence  is  a  sufficient  miracle.  The  rising  of 
the  sun,  the  changes  of  the  seasons,  the  blooming 
of  flowers  and  the  ripening  of  the  grain,  were 
all  miracles  to  Hawthorne,  and  none  the  less  so 
because  they  are  continually  being  repeated. 
The  scientists  tell  us  that  all  these  happen  accord 
ing  to  natural  laws:  perfectly  true,  but  WHO 
was  it  that  made  those  laws?  WHO  is  it  that 
keeps  the  universe  running?  Laws  made  for 
the  regulation  of  human  affairs  by  the  wisest  of 
men  often  prove  ineffective,  and  inadequate 
to  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  intended; 
but  the  laws  of  Nature  work  with  unfailing 
accuracy.  The  boy  solves  his  problem  in 
algebra,  rinding  out  the  unknown  quantity  by 
those  values  which  are  given  him;  and  can  we 
not  also  infer  something  of  the  unknown  from 
the  great  panorama  that  passes  unceasingly 
before  us?  The  one  thing  that  Hawthorne 
could  not  have  understood  was,  how  gifted 
minds  like  Lucretius  and  Auguste  Comte  could 
recognize  only  the  evidence  of  their  senses,  and 
deliberately  blind  themselves  to  the  evidence  of 
their  intellects.  He  who  denies  the  existence  of 
mind  as  a  reality  resembles  a  person  looking  for 
his  spectacles  when  they  are  on  his  nose;  but 
it  is  the  imagination  of  the  poet  that  leads 
civilization  onward  to  its  goal. 

424 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

College  life  is  rather  generally  followed  by  a 
period  of  scepticism,  partly  owing  in  former  times 
to  the  enforced  attendance  at  morning  prayers, 
and  still  more  perhaps  to  the  study  of  Greek 
and  Latin  authors.  During  what  might  be 
called  Hawthorne's  period  of  despair,  he  could 
not  very  well  have  obtained  consolation  from 
the  traditional  forms  of  divine  worship;  at 
least,  such  has  been  the  experience  of  all  those 
who  have  passed  through  the  Wertherian  stage, 
so  far  as  we  know  of  them.  It  is  a  time  when 
every  man  has  to  strike  the  fountain  of  spiritual 
life  out  of  the  hard  rock  of  his  own  existence; 
and  those  are  fortunate  who,  like  Moses  and 
Hawthorne,  strike  forcibly  enough  to  accomplish 
this.  It  is  the  "new  birth  from  above,"  in  the 
light  of  which  religious  forms  seem  of  least 
importance. 

One  effect  of  matrimony  is  commonly  a  deep 
ening  of  religious  feeling,  but  it  is  not  surprising 
that  Hawthorne  should  not  have  attended 
church  after  his  marriage.  His  wife  had  not  been 
accustomed  to  church-going,  on  account  of  the 
uncertainty  of  her  health;  the  Old  Manse  was 
a  long  distance  from  the  Concord  tabernacle; 
Hawthorne's  associates  in  Concord,  with  the 
exception  of  Judge  Keyes,  were  not  in  the  habit 
of  going  to  church;  and  the  officiating  minister, 
both  at  that  time  and  during  his  later  sojourn, 
was  not  a  person  who  could  have  been  intel 
lectually  attractive  to  him.  Somewhat  similar 
reasons  may  have  interfered  with  his  attendance 
after  his  return  to  Salem;  and  during  the  last 

425 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

fifteen  years  of  his  life,  he  was  too  much  of  a 
wanderer  to  take  a  serious  interest  in  the  local 
affairs  of  the  various  places  he  inhabited ;  but  he 
was  desirous  that  his  children  should  go  to  church 
and  should  be  brought  up  in  honest  Christian 
ways. 

Little  more  need  to  be  said  concerning  Haw 
thorne's  character  as  a  man.  It  was  not  so 
perfect  as  Longfellow's,  to  whom  all  other 
American  authors  should  bow  the  head  in  this 
respect — the  Washington  of  poets;  and  yet  it 
was  a  rare  example  of  purity,  refinement,  and 
patient  endurance.  His  faults  were  insignificant 
in  comparison  with  his  virtues,  and  the  most 
conspicuous  of  them,  his  tendency  to  revenge 
himself  for  real  or  fancied  injuries,  is  but  a  part 
of  the  natural  instinct  in  us  to  return  the  blows 
we  receive  in  self-defence.  Wantonly,  and  of 
his  own  accord,  he  never  injured  human  being. 
His  domestic  life  was  as  pure  and  innocent  as 
that  which  appeared  before  the  world;  and 
Mrs.  Hawthorne  once  said  of  him  in  my  presence 
that  she  did  not  believe  he  ever  committed  an 
act  that  could  properly  be  considered  wrong. 
It  was  like  his  writing,  and  his  "wells  of  English 
undefiled"  were  but  as  a  synonym  for  the  clear 
current  of  his  daily  existence. 

The  ideality  in  Hawthorne's  face  was  so 
conspicuous  that  it  is  recognizable  in  every 
portrait  of  him.  It  was  not  the  cold  visionary 
expression  of  the  abstract  thinker,  but  a 
human  poetic  intelligence,  which  resolved  all 
things  into  a  spiritual  alembic  of  its  own. 

426 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

It  is  this  which  elevates  him  above  all  writers 
who  only  deal  with  the  outer  world  as  they  find 
it,  and  add  nothing  to  it  from  their  own  natures. 

George  Brandes,  the  Danish  critic  and  essayist, 
speaks  of  Hawthorne  somewhere  as  "the  baby 
poet;"  but  we  suspect  that  if  he  had  ever  met 
the  living  Hawthorne,  he  would  have  stood 
very  much  in  awe  of  him.  It  would  not  have 
been  like  meeting  Ernest  Renan  or  John  Stuart 
Mill.  Although  Hawthorne  was  not  splenetic  or 
rash,  there  was  an  occasional  look  in  his  eye 
which  a  prudent  person  might  beware  of.  He 
was  emphatically  a  man  of  courage. 

The  wide  and  liberal  interest  which  German 
scholars  and  writers  have  so  long  taken  in  the 
literature  of  other  nations,  has  resulted  in  found 
ing  an  informal  literary  tribunal  in  Germany, 
to  which  the  rest  of  the  world  is  accustomed  to 
appeal.  A.  E.  Schonbach,  one  of  the  most 
recent  German  writers  on  universal  literature, 
gives  his  impression  of  Hawthorne  in  the  follow 
ing  statement: 

"  I  find  the  distinguishing  excellence  of  Haw 
thorne's  imaginative  writings  in  the  union 
of  profound,  keen,  psychological  development  of 
characters  and  problems  with  the  most  lucid 
objectivity  and  a  joyous  modern  realism.  Oc 
casionally  there  appears  a  light  and  delicate 
humor,  sometimes  hidden  in  a  mere  adjective, 
or  little  phrase  which  lights  up  the  gloomiest 
situation  with  a  gentle  ray  of  hope.  Far  from 
unimportant  do  I  rate  the  charm  of  his  language, 
its  purity,  its  melody,  its  graceful  flexibility, 

427 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

the  wealth  of  vocabulary,  the  polish  which 
rarely  betrays  the  touch  of  the  file.  After,  or 
with  George  Eliot,  Hawthorne  is  the  first  English 
prose  writer  of  our  century.  At  the  same  time 
he  sacrifices  nothing  of  his  peculiar  American 
quality.  Not  only  does  he  penetrate  into  the 
most  secret  inner  movements  of  the  old  colonial 
life,  as  no  one  else  has  done,  and  reproduces 
the  spirit  of  his  forefathers  with  a  power  of 
intuition  which  no  historical  work  could  equal; 
but  in  all  his  other  works,  from  the  biography 
of  General  Pierce,  to  the  '  Marble  Faun, '  Haw 
thorne  shows  the  freshness  and  keenness,  the 
precision  and  lucidity,  and  other  qualities  not 
easy  to  describe,  which  belong  to  American 
literature.  He  is  its  chief  representative.  "  * 

Hawthorne  has  always  been  accorded  a  high 
position  in  literature,  and  as  time  goes  on  I 
believe  this  will  be  increased  rather  than  dimin 
ished.  In  beauty  of  diction  he  is  the  first  of 
American  writers,  and  there  are  few  that  equal 
him  in  this  respect  in  other  languages.  It  is 
a  pleasure  to  read  him,  simply  for  his  form  of 
expression,  and  apart  from  the  meaning  which 
he  conveys  in  his  sentences.  It  is  like  the  grace 
of  the  Latin  races, — like  Dante  and  Chateau 
briand;  and  the  adaptation  of  his  words  is  so 
perfect  that  we  never  have  to  think  twice  for 
his  meaning.  In  those  editions  called  the 
Elzevirs,  which  are  so  much  prized  by  book 
collectors,  the  clearness  and  legibility  of  the 


*  "  Gesammelte  Aufsatze  zur  neueren  Litteratur,  "  p.  346. 
428 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

type  result  from  such  a  fine  proportion  of  space 
and  line  that  no  other  printer  has  succeeded  in 
imitating  it;  and  there  is  something  similar 
to  this  in  the  construction  of  Hawthorne's 
sentences. 

He  is  the  romance  writer  of  the  English 
language;  and  there  is  no  form  of  literature 
which  the  human  race  prizes  more.  How  many 
translations  there  have  been  of  ''The  Vicar  of 
Wakefield,"  and  of  "The  Sorrows  of  Werther"! 
The  latter  is  not  one  of  Goethe's  best,  and  yet 
it  made  him  famous  at  the  age  of  twenty-eight. 
The  novel  deals  with  what  is  new  and  surprising ; 
the  romance  with  what  is  old  and  universal. 
In  "The  Vicar  of  Wakefield"  we  have  the  old 
story  of  virtue  outwitted  by  evil,  which  is  in 
its  turn  outwitted  by  wisdom.  There  is  nothing 
new  in  it  except  the  charming  exposition  which 
Goldsmith's  genius  has  given  to  the  subject. 
Thackeray  ridiculed  "The  Sorrows  of  Werther," 
and  in  the  light  of  matured  judgment  the  tale 
appears  ridiculous;  but  it  strikes  home  to  the 
heart,  because  we  all  learn  wisdom  through  such 
experiences,  of  which  young  Werther's  is  an 
extreme  instance.  It  was  only  another  example 
of  the  close  relation  that  subsists  between 
comedy  and  tragedy. 

It  cannot  be  questioned  that  "The  Scarlet 
Letter"  ranks  above  "The  Sorrows  of  Werther;" 
nor  is  it  less  evident  that  "The  Marble  Faun" 
falls  short  of  "Wilhelm  Meister"  and  "Don 
Quixote."*  Hawthorne's  position,  therefore, 

*  See  "Cervantes"  in  North  American  Review,  May,  1905 
429 


THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 

lies  between  these  two — nearer  perhaps  to 
"Werther"  than  to  "Wilhelm  Meister."  In 
certain  respects  he  is  surpassed  by  the  great 
English  novelists:  Fielding,  Scott,  Thackeray, 
Dickens  and  Marian  Evans;  but  he  in  turn 
surpasses  them  all  in  the  perfection  and  poetic 
quality  of  his  art.  There  is  much  poetry  in 
Scott  and  Dickens,  a  little  also  in  Thackeray 
and  Miss  Evans,  but  Hawthorne's  poetic  vein 
has  a  more  penetrating  tone,  and  appeals  more 
deeply  than  Scott's  verses.  If  power  and 
versatility  of  characterization  were  to  be  the 
test  of  imaginative  writing,  Dickens  would 
push  closely  on  to  Shakespeare;  but  we  do  not 
go  to  Shakespeare  to  read  about  Hamlet  or 
Falstaff,  or  for  the  sake  of  the  story,  or  even  for 
his  wisdom,  but  for  the  tout  ensemble — to  read 
Shakespeare.  Raphael  painted  a  dozen  or  more 
pictures  on  the  same  subject,  but  they  are  all 
original,  interesting  and  valuable,  because 
Raphael  painted  them.  If  it  were  not  for  the 
odd  characters  and  variety  of  incident  in  Dick- 
ens's  novels  they  would  hardly  be  worth  reading. 
Hawthorne's  dramatis  persona  is  not  a  long  one, 
for  his  plots  do  not  admit  of  it,  but  his  characters 
are  finely  drawn,  and  the  fact  that  they  have  not 
become  popular  types  is  rather  in  their  favor. 
There  are  Dombeys  and  Shy  locks  in  plenty, 
but  who  has  ever  met  a  Hamlet  or  a  Rosalind  in 
real  life? 

A  certain  English  writer  promulgated  a  list 
of  the  hundred  superior  authors  of  all  times  and 
countries.  There  were  no  Americans  in  his 

430 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

catalogue,  but  he  admitted  that  if  the  number 
was  increased  to  one  hundred  and  eighteen 
Hawthorne  and  Emerson  might  be  included  in 
it.  Doubtless  he  had  not  heard  of  Webster  or 
Alexander  Hamilton,  and  many  of  his  country 
men  would  be  inclined  to  place  Longfellow 
before  Emerson. 

I  have  myself  frequently  counted  over  the 
great  writers  of  all  times  and  languages,  weighing 
their  respective  values  carefully  in  my  mind, 
but  I  have  never  been  able  to  discover  more 
than  thirty-five  authors  who  seem  to  me  de 
cidedly  superior  to  Hawthorne,  nor  above  forty 
others  who  might  be  placed  on  an  equality 
with  him.*  This,  of  course,  is  only  an  individual 
opinion,  and  should  be  accepted  for  what  it  is 
worth;  but  there  are  many  ancient  writers, 
like  Hesiod,  Xenophon,  and  Catullus,  whose 
chief  value  resides  in  their  antiquity,  and  a 
much  larger  number  of  modern  authors, 
such  as  Balzac,  Victor  Hugo,  Freytag,  and 
Ruskin,  who  have  been  over-estimated  in  their 
own  time.  Petrarch,  and  the  author  of  "Gil 
Bias,"  might  be  placed  on  a  level  with  Haw 
thorne,  but  certainly  not  above  him.  Those 
whom  he  most  closely  resembles  in  style  and 
subject  matter  are  Goldsmith,  Manzoni,  and 
Auerbach. 

Yet  Hawthorne  is  essentially  a  domestic 
writer, — a  poetizer  of  the  hearth-stone.  Social 
life  is  always  the  proper  subject  for  works  of 

*  Appendix  C. 
431 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

fiction,  and  political  life  should  never  enter 
into  them,  except  as  a  subordinate  element; 
but  there  is  a  border-land  between  the  two,  in 
which  politics  and  society  act  and  react  on 
each  other,  and  it  is  from  this  field  that  the 
great  subjects  for  epic  and  dramatic  poetry 
have  always  been  reaped.  Hawthorne  only 
knew  of  this  by  hearsay.  Of  the  strenuous 
conflict  that  continually  goes  on  in  political 
centres  like  London  and  New  York,  a  struggle 
for  wealth,  for  honor,  and  precedence;  of  plots 
and  counterplots,  of  foiled  ambition  and  ruined 
reputations, — with  all  this  Hawthorne  had  but 
slight  acquaintance.  We  miss  in  him  the 
masculine  vigor  of  Fielding,  the  humanity  of 
Dickens,  and  the  trenchant  criticism  of  Thack 
eray;  but  he  knew  that  the  true  poetry  of  life 
(at  the  present  time)  was  to  be  found  in  quiet 
nooks  and  in  places  far  off  from  the  turbulent 
maelstrom  of  humanity,  and  in  his  own  line 
he  remains  unrivalled. 


432 


Portraits    of  Hawthorne 


HAWTHORNE  had  no  more  vanity  in  his  na 
ture  than  is  requisite  to  preserve  a  good  appear 
ance  in  public,  but  he  always  sat  for  his  portrait 
when  asked  to  do  so,  and  this  was  undoubtedly 
the  most  sensible  way.  He  was  first  painted 
by  Charles  Osgood  in  1840,  a  portrait  which 
has  at  least  the  merit  of  a  fine  poetic  expression. 
He  was  afterward  painted  by  Thompson,  Healy, 
and  Emanuel  Leutze,  and  drawn  in  crayon 
by  Rowse  and  Eastman  Johnson.  Frances 
Osborne  also  painted  a  portrait  of  him  from 
photographs  in  1893,  an  excellent  likeness, 
and  notable  especially  for  its  far-off  gaze.  Of 
all  these,  Rowse 's  portrait  is  the  finest  work  of 
art,  for  Rowse  was  a  man  of  genius,  but  there 
is  a  slight  tendency  to  exaggeration  in  it,  and 
it  does  not  afford  so  clear  an  idea  of  Hawthorne 
as  he  was,  as  the  Osborne  portrait.  Healy 
was  not  very  successful  with  Hawthorne,  and 
Miss  Lander's  bust  has  no  merit  whatever.  The 
following  list  contains  most  of  the  portraits  and 
photographs  of  Hawthorne  now  known  to  exist, 
with  their  respective  ownerships  and  locations. 

Oil  portrait  painted  by  Charles  Osgood,  in 
1840.  Owned  by  Mrs.  Richard  C.  Manning. 

Crayon  portrait  drawn  by  Eastman  H.  Johnson, 
in  1846.     Owned  by  Miss  Alice  M.  Longfellow. 
28  433 


PORTRAITS  OF  HAWTHORNE 

Oil  portrait  painted  by  George  P.  A.  Healy,  in 
1850.  Now  in  the  possession  of  Kirk  Pierce,  Esq. 

Oil  portrait  by  Miss  H.  Frances  Osborne, 
after  a  photograph  by  Silsbee,  Case  &  Co., 
Boston. 

Crayon  portrait  drawn  by  Samuel  W.  Rowse, 
in  1866.  Owned  by  Mrs.  Annie  Fields. 

Engraving  after  the  portrait  painted  in  1850 
by  Cephas  G.  Thompson.  Owned  by  Hon. 
Henry  C.  Leach. 

The  Grolier  Club  bronze  medallion,  made 
in  1892,  by  Ringel  d'lllzach.  Owned  by  B. 
W.  Pierson. 

Cabinet  photograph,  bust,  by  Elliott  &  Fry, 
London.  Owned  by  Mrs.  Richard  C.  Manning. 

Card  photograph,  full  length,  seated,  with 
book  in  right  hand,  by  Black  &  Case,  Boston. 

Cabinet  photograph,  three-quarter  length, 
standing  beside  a  pillar,  copy  by  Mackintire  of 
the  original  photograph. 

Card  photograph,  three-quarter  length, 
seated,  from  Warren's  Photographic  Studio, 
Boston. 

Card  photograph,  bust,  by  Brady,  New  York, 
with  autographic  signature.  Owned  by  Hon. 
Henry  C.  Leach. 

Bust  in  the  Concord  (Massachusetts)  Public 
Library,  by  Miss  Louise  Lander. 

Card  photograph,  bust,  from  Warren's  Photo 
graphic  Studio,  Boston.  Owned  by  Mrs.  Richard 
C.  Manning. 

Oil  portrait  by  Emanuel  Leutze,  painted  in 
April,  1852.  Owned  by  Julian  Hawthorne. 

434 


PORTRAITS  OF  HAWTHORNE 

Photograph  by  May  all,  London.  The  so- 
called  "Motley  photograph." 

Two  photographs  by  Brady,  full  length; 
one  seated,  the  other  standing. 

Photograph  showing  Hawthorne,  Ticknor 
and  Fields  standing  together. 


435 


Editions  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  Books 
published  under  his  own  Direction 


Fanshawe  :  A  Tale,  Boston,  1828. 

Twice-Told  Tales,  Boston,  1837. 

Another  edition,  Boston,  1842. 

Peter  Parley's  Universal  History,  Boston,  1837. 

The  Gentle  Boy  :  A  Thrice-Told  Tale,  Boston,  1839. 

Grandfather's  Chair  :  A  History  for  Youth,  Boston,  1841. 

Famous  Old  People  :  or  Grandfather's  Chair  II,  Boston, 
1841. 

Liberty  Tree  :   The  Last  Words  of  Grandfather's   Chair, 
Boston,  1841. 

Biographical  Stories  for  Children,  Boston,  1842. 

Historical  Tales  for  Youth,  Boston,  1842. 

The  Celestial  Eailroad,  Boston,  1843. 

Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,  New  York,  1846,  1851. 

The  Scarlet  Letter,  Boston,  1850. 

True  Stories  from  History  and  Biography,  Boston,  1851. 

The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  Boston,  1852. 

A  Wonder- Book  for  Girls  and  Boys,  Boston,  1851. 

Another  edition,  Boston,  1857. 

The  Snow-Image  and  Other  Tales,  Boston,  1852. 

Another  edition,  Boston,  1857. 

The  Blithedale  Kornance,  Boston,  1852. 

Life  of  Franklin  Pierce,  Boston,  1852. 

Tanglewood  Tales  for  Girls  and  Boys,  Boston,  1853. 
436 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

Transformation,  or  the  Romance  of  Monte  Beni,  Smith  & 
Elder,  London,  1860. 

The  Marble  Faun,  or  the  Romance  of  Monte  Beni,  Bos 
ton,  1860. 

Our  Old  Home,  Boston,  1863. 

A  complete  list  of  Hawthorne's  contributions  to  American 
magazines  will  be  found  in  the  appendix  to  Conway's  "Life  of 
Hawthorne" 


v^A^t  v2 

Or  THE     "^ 


VER31TY 


437 


Mrs.  Emerson  and  Mrs.  Hawthorne* 


IN  1892,  when  I  was  constructing  the  volume 
known  as  "Sketches  from  Concord  and  Apple- 
dore,"  I  said  in  comparing  Emerson  with  Haw 
thorne  that  one  was  like  day,  and  the  other 
like  night.  I  was  not  aware  that  four  years 
earlier  M.  D.  Conway  had  made  a  similar  state 
ment  in  his  Life  of  Hawthorne,  which  was 
published  in  London.  Miss  Rebecca  Manning, 
Hawthorne's  own  cousin,  still  living  at  the  age 
of  eighty  and  an  admirable  old  lady,  distinctly 
confirms  my  statement,  that  "wherever  Haw 
thorne  went  he  carried  twilight  with  him." 
Emerson,  on  the  contrary,  was  of  a  sanguine 
temperament  and  an  essentially  sunny  nature. 
His  writings  are  full  of  good  cheer,  and  the 
opening  of  his  Divinity  School  Address  is  as 
full  of  summer  sunshine  as  the  finest  July  day. 
It  was  only  necessary  to  see  him  look  at  the 
sunshine  from  his  own  porch  to  recognize  how 
it  penetrated  into  the  depths  of  his  nature. 

It  would  seem  consistent  with  the  rational 
order  of  things,  that  day  should  be  supplemented 
by  night,  and  night  again  by  day;  and  here  we 
are  almost  startled  by  the  completeness  of  our 
allegory.  We  sometimes  come  across  faces  in 
the  streets  of  a  large  city,  which  show  by  their 

*  Read  at  the  Emerson  Club,  at  Boston,  January  2,  1906. 
438 


MRS.  EMERSON  AND  MRS.  HAWTHORNE 

expression  that  they  are  more  accustomed  to 
artificial  light  than  to  the  light  of  the  sun. 
Mrs.  Emerson  was  one  of  these.  She  never 
seemed  to  be  fully  herself,  until  the  lamps 
were  lighted.  Her  pale  face  seemed  to  give 
forth  moonlight,  and  its  habitual  expression 
was  much  like  that  of  a  Sister  of  Charity.  It 
was  said  of  her  that  she  was  the  last  in  the 
house  to  retire  at  night,  always  reading  or 
busying  herself  with  household  affairs,  until 
twelve  or  one  o'clock;  but  this  mode  of  life 
would  appear  to  have  been  suited  to  her  organi 
zation,  for  in  spite  of  her  colorless  look  she 
lived  to  be  over  ninety. 

So  far  I  can  tread  upon  firm  earth,  without 
drawing  upon  my  imagination,  but  in  regard 
to  Mrs.  Hawthorne  I  cannot  speak  with  the 
same  assurance,  for  I  only  became  acquainted 
with  her  after  her  husband's  health  had  begun 
to  fail,  and  the  anxiety  in  her  face  was  strongly 
marked ;  yet  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  her 
temperament  was  originally  sanguine  and 
optimistic,  and  that  she  alternated  from  dreamy, 
pensive  moods  to  bright  vivacious  ones.  She 
certainly  was  very  different  from  her  husband. 
Her  sister,  Elizabeth  Peabody,  was  the  most 
sanguine  person  of  her  time,  and  her  introduc 
tion  of  the  kindergarten  into  America  was 
accomplished  through  her  unbounded  hope 
fulness.  The  Wayside,  where  Mrs.  Hawthorne 
lived,  has  an  extended  southern  exposure.  The 
house  was  always  full  of  light,  which  is  not 
often  the  case  with  New  England  country 

439 


MRS.  EMERSON  AND  MRS.  HAWTHORNE 

houses ;  and  when  she  lived  at  Liverpool,  where 
sunshine  is  a  rare  commodity,  she  became  un 
well,  so  that  Mr.  Hawthorne  was  obliged  to 
send  her  to  Madeira  in  order  to  avert  a  dan 
gerous  illness. 

These  two  estimable  ladies  were  alike  in  the 
excellence  of  their  housekeeping,  the  purity 
of  their  manners,  their  universal  kindliness, 
and  their  devotion  to  the  welfare  of  their  hus 
bands  and  children.  It  was  a  pleasure  to  pass 
them  on  the  road-side ;  the  fare  at  their  tables 
was  always  of  the  nicest,  even  if  it  happened 
to  be  frugal;  and  people  of  all  classes  could 
have  testified  to  their  helpful  liberality.  In 
these  respects  they  might  almost  have  served 
as  models,  but  otherwise  they  were  as  different 
as  possible.  Mrs.  Emerson  was  of  a  tall,  slender, 
and  somewhat  angular  figure  (like  her  hus 
band),  but  she  presided  at  table  with  a  grace 
and  dignity  that  quite  justified  his  favorite 
epithet  of  "  Queenie."  There  was  even  more 
of  the  Puritan  left  in  her  than  there  was  in  him, 
and  although  she  encouraged  the  liberal  move 
ments  and  tendencies  of  her  time,  one  always 
felt  in  her  mental  attitude  the  inflexibility  of 
the  moral  law.  To  her  mind  there  was  no  shady 
border-land  between  right  and  wrong,  but  the 
two  were  separated  by  a  sharply  defined  line, 
which  was  never  to  be  crossed,  and  she  lived 
up  to  this  herself,  and,  in  theory  at  least, 
she  had  but  little  mercy  for  sinners.  On 
one  occasion  I  was  telling  Mr.  Emerson  of 
a  fraudulent  manufacturing  company,  which 

440 


MRS.  EMERSON  AND  MRS.  HAWTHORNE 

had  failed,  as  it  deserved  to,  and  which  was 
found  on  investigation  to  have  kept  two  sets 
of  books,  one  for  themselves,  and  another  for 
their  creditors.  Mrs.  Emerson  listened  to  this 
narrative  with  evident  impatience,  and  at  the 
close  of  it  she  exclaimed,  "This  world  has  be 
come  so  wicked  that  if  I  were  the  maker  of  it, 
I  should  blow  it  up  at  once."  Emerson  him 
self  did  not  like  such  stories;  and  although 
he  once  said  that  "all  deaf  children  ought  to 
be  put  in  the  water  with  their  faces  down 
ward,"  he  was  not  always  willing  to  accept 
human  nature  for  what  it  really  is. 

Mrs.  Emerson  did  not  agree  with  her  hus 
band's  religious  views;  neither  did  she  adopt 
the  transcendental  faith,  that  the  idea  of  God 
is  innate  in  the  human  mind,  so  that  we  can 
not  be  dispossessed  of  it.  She  belonged  to  the 
conservative  branch  of  the  Unitarian  Church, 
which  was  represented  by  Reverend  James 
Freeman  Clarke  and  Doctor  Andrew  P.  Pea- 
body.  The  subject  was  one  which  was  permitted 
to  remain  in  abeyance  between  them,  but  Mrs. 
Emerson  was  naturally  suspicious  of  those 
reverend  gentlemen  who  called  upon  her  hus 
band,  and  this  may  have  been  the  reason  why 
he  did  not  encourage  the  visits  of  clergymen 
like  Samuel  Johnson,  Samuel  Longfellow,  and 
Professor  Hedge,  whom  he  greatly  respected, 
and  who  should  have  been  by  good  rights  his 
chosen  companions.  I  suppose  all  husbands  are 
obliged  to  make  these  domestic  compromises. 

Mrs.  Emerson  had  also  something  of  the 
441 


MRS.  EMERSON  AND  MRS.  HAWTHORNE 

spirit-militant  in  her.  When  David  A.  Wasson 
came  to  dine  at  Mr.  Emerson's  invitation, 
she  said  to  him,  by  way  of  grace  before  meat: 
"I  see  you  have  been  carrying  on  a  controversy 
with  Reverend  Mr.  Sears,  of  Wayland,  and  you 
will  excuse  me  for  expressing  my  opinion  that 
Mr.  Sears  had  the  best  of  it."  But  after  sound 
ing  this  little  flourish  of  trumpets,  she  was  as 
kindly  and  hospitable  as  any  one  could  desire. 
She  was  one  of  the  earliest  recruits  to  the  anti- 
slavery  cause, — not  only  a  volunteer,  but  a 
recruiting  officer  as  well, — and  she  made  this 
decision  entirely  of  her  own  mind,  without  any 
special  encouragement  from  her  husband  or  rel 
atives.  At  the  time  of  John  Brown's  execution 
she  wanted  to  have  the  bells  tolled  in  Concord, 
and  urged  her  husband  energetically  to  see  that 
it  was  done.  Mrs.  Emerson  was  always  thor 
oughly  herself.  There  never  was  the  shadow 
of  an  affectation  upon  her;  nor  more  than  a 
shadow  of  self-consciousness — very  rare  among 
conscientious  persons.  One  of  her  fine  traits 
was  her  fondness  for  flowers,  which  she  culti 
vated  in  the  little  garden  between  her  house 
and  the  mill-brook,  with  a  loving  assiduity. 
She  is  supposed  to  have  inspired  Emerson's 
poem,  beginning: 

"  O  fair  and  stately  maid,  whose  eyes 
Were  kindled  in  the  upper  skies 

At  the  same  torch  that  lighted  mine: 
For  so  I  must  interpret  still 
Thy  sweet  dominion  o'er  my  will, 
A  sympathy  divine." 

442 


MRS.  EMERSON  AND  MRS.  HAWTHORNE 

There  are  other  references  to  her  in  his  pub 
lished  writings,  which  only  those  who  were 
personally  acquainted  with  her  would  recognize. 

Mrs.  Hawthorne  belonged  to  the  class  of 
womankind  which  Shakespeare  has  typified 
in  Ophelia,  a  tender-hearted,  affectionate  na 
ture,  too  sensitive  for  the  rough  strains  of  life, 
and  too  innocent  to  recognize  the  guile  in  others. 
This  was  at  once  her  strength  and  her  weakness ; 
but  it  was  united,  as  often  happens,  with  a 
fine  artistic  nature,  and  superior  intelligence. 
Her  face  and  manners  both  gave  the  impres 
sion  of  a  wide  and  elevated  culture.  One  could 
see  that  although  she  lived  by  the  wayside, 
she  had  been  accustomed  to  enter  palaces. 
Her  long  residence  in  England,  her  Italian 
experience,  her  visit  to  the  Court  of  Portugal, 
her  enjoyment  of  fine  pictures,  poetry,  and 
architecture,  the  acquaintance  of  distinguished 
men  and  women  in  different  countries,  had  all 
left  their  impress  upon  her,  combined  in  a 
quiet  and  lady-like  harmony.  Her  conversa 
tion  was  cosmopolitan,  and  though  she  did  not 
quite  possess  the  narrative  gift  of  her  sister 
Elizabeth,  it  was  often  exceedingly  interesting. 

Hawthorne  has  been  looked  upon  as  the 
necrologist  of  the  Puritans,  and  yet  a  certain 
coloring  of  Puritanism  adhered  to  him  to  the 
last.  It  was  his  wife  who  had  entirely  escaped 
from  the  old  New  England  conventicle.  Se 
verity  was  at  the  opposite  pole  from  her  moral 
nature.  Tolerant  and  charitable  to  the  faults 

443 


MRS.  EMERSON  AND  MRS.  HAWTHORNE 

of  others,  her  only  fault  was  the  lack  of  severity. 
She  believed  in  the  law  of  love,  and  when  kind 
words  did  not  serve  her  purpose  she  let  matters 
take  what  course  they  would,  trusting  that 
good  might  fall,  "At  last  far  off  at  last  to  all." 
I  suspect  her  pathway  was  by  no  means  a 
flowery  one.  Mrs.  Emerson's  life  had  to  be  as 
stoical  as  her  husband's,  and  Mrs.  Hawthorne's, 
previous  to  the  Liverpool  consulate, — the  con 
sulship  of  Hawthorne, — was  even  more  diffi 
cult.  No  one  knew  better  than  she  the  meaning 
of  that  heroism  which  each  day  requires.  A 
writer  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  reviewing 
Julian  Hawthorne's  biography  of  his  father, 
emphasizes,  "the  dual  selfishness  of  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Hawthorne."  Insensate  words!  There 
was  no  room  for  selfishness  in  the  lives 
they  led.  In  a  certain  sense  they  lived  almost 
wholly  for  one  another  and  for  their  children; 
but  Hawthorne  himself  lived  for  all  time  and 
for  all  mankind,  and  his  wife  lived  through 
him  to  the  same  purpose.  The  especial  form 
of  their  material  life  was  as  essential  to  its 
spiritual  outgrowth  as  the  rose-bush  is  to  the 
rose;  and  it  would  be  a  cankered  selfishness 
to  complain  of  them  for  it. 


444 


Appendices 


APPENDIX  A 

THERE  is  at  least  one  error  in  the  Symmes 
diary,  which  is  however  explainable,  and  need 
not  vitiate  the  whole  of  it.  It  has  been  ascer 
tained  that  the  drowning  of  Henry  Jackson 
in  Songo  River  by  being  kicked  in  the  mouth 
by  another  boy  while  swimming,  took  place 
in  1828,  so  that  the  statement  to  that  effect  in 
the  diary,  must  have  been  interpolated.  As  it 
happened,  however,  another  Henry  Jackson 
was  drowned  in  the  Songo  River,  so  Mr.  Pick- 
ard  says,  more  than  twenty  years  before  that, 
and  it  is  quite  possible  that  young  Hawthorne 
overheard  some  talk  about  that  catastrophe, 
and  mistook  it  for  a  recent  event;  and  that 
Symmes  afterwards  confounding  the  two  Jack- 
sons  and  the  difference  in  time,  amended  Haw 
thorne's  statement  as  we  now  have  it.  Mr. 
Pickard  says  in  a  recent  letter: 

"  This  item  alone  led  me  to  doubt.  But  I  cannot  doubt, 
the  more  I  reflect  upon  it,  that  H.  himself  had  a  hand  in 
most,  if  not  all,  the  other  items.  Who  but  his  uncle  could 
have  written  that  inscription?  The  negro  Symmes  could  not 
have  composed  that — only  a  man  of  culture."  .  .  "The 
sketch  of  the  sail  on  Sebago  Lake  surely  was  written  by 
some  one  who  was  in  that  party.  Symmes  might  have  been 
there,  but  he  was  a  genius  deserving  the  fame  of  a  Chat- 
terton  if  he  really  did  this.  Three  of  that  party  I  personally 

445 


APPENDIX  A 

knew — one  (Sawyer)  was  a  cousin  of  my  grandfather.  His 
sleight  of  hand,  his  skill  with  rifle,  his  being  a  '  votary  of 
chance,'  are  traditions  in  my  family." 

This  does  not  differ  essentially  from  the 
opinion  I  have  already  expressed  in  Chapter  II. 
F.  B.  Sanborn,  who  is  one  of  the  best-informed 
of  living  men  in  regard  to  Hawthorne,  takes 
a  similar  view. 


446 


APPENDIX    B 

In  February,  1883,  a  review  of  "Nathaniel 
Hawthorne  and  his  Wife"  was  published  in 
the  Atlantic  Monthly,  evidently  written  by  a 
person  with  no  good- will  toward  the  family. 
Editors  ought  to  beware  of  such  reviews,  for 
their  character  is  easily  recognized,  and  the 
effect  they  produce  often  reacts  upon  the  pub 
lication  that  contains  them.  In  the  present 
instance,  the  ill-humor  of  the  writer  had  evi 
dently  been  bottled  up  for  many  years. 

To  place  typographical  errors  to  the  debit 
of  an  author's  account — not  very  numerous 
for  a  work  of  eight  hundred  pages — suggests 
either  an  inexperienced  or  a  strongly  preju 
diced  critic.  This  is  what  the  Atlantic  writer 
begins  with,  and  he  (or  she)  next  proceeds  to 
complain  that  the  book  does  not  contain  a 
complete  bibliography  of  Hawthorne's  works; 
although  many  excellent  biographies  have  been 
published  without  this,  and  it  is  quite  possible 
that  Hawthorne's  son  preferred  not  to  insert 
it.  No  notice  is  taken  of  the  many  fine  passages 
in  the  book,  like  the  apostrophe  upon  Haw 
thorne's  marriage,*  and  that  excellent  de 
scription  of  the  performances  of  a  trance  medium 
at  Florence,  but  continues  in  an  ascending 
climax  of  fault-finding  until  he  (or  she)  reaches 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  242. 
447 


APPENDIX  B 

the  passage  from  Hawthorne's  Roman  diary 
concerning  Margaret  Fuller.* 

If  public  opinion  has  any  value,  this  passage 
concerning  Margaret  Fuller's  marriage  ought 
not  to  have  been  published;  but  what  can 
Margaret  Fuller's  friends  and  admirers  expect? 
Do  they  think  that  a  young  American  woman 
can  go  to  a  foreign  country,  and  live  with  a 
foreign  gentleman,  in  defiance  of  the  customs 
of  modern  society,  without  subjecting  herself 
to  the  severest  criticism?  It  is  true  that  she 
married  Count  d'Ossoli  before  her  child  was 
born,  and  her  friends,  who  were  certainly  an 
enlightened  class,  always  believed  that  she 
acted  throughout  from  the  most  honorable 
motives  (my  own  opinion  is,  that  she  acted  in 
imitation  of  Goethe),  but  how  can  they  expect 
the  great  mass  of  mankind  to  think  so?  Haw 
thorne  had  a  right  to  his  opinion,  as  well  as 
Emerson  and  Channing,  and  although  it  was 
certainly  not  a  very  charitable  opinion,  we  can 
not  doubt  that  it  was  an  honest  one.  In  regard 
to  the  marriage  tie,  Hawthorne  was  always 
strict  and  conservative. 

This  is  the  climax  of  the  Atlantic  critique, 
and  its  anti-climax  is  an  excoriation  of  Haw 
thorne's  son  for  neglecting  to  do  equal  and 
exact  justice  to  James  T.  Fields.  This  truly 
is  a  grievous  accusation.  Fields  was  Haw 
thorne's  publisher  and  would  seem  to  have 
taken  a  personal  and  friendly  interest  in  him 

*  J.  Hawthorne,  i.  30-35. 
448 


APPENDIX  B 

besides,  but  we  cannot  look  on  it  as  a  wholly 
unselfish  interest.  It  was  not  like  Hillard's, 
Pierce's,  and  Bridge's  interest  in  Hawthorne. 
If  Fields  had  not  been  his  publisher,  it  is  not 
probable  that  Hawthorne  would  have  made 
his  acquaintance;  and  if  his  son  has  not 
enlarged  on  Fields 's  good  offices  in  bringing 
"The  Scarlet  Letter"  before  the  public,  there 
is  an  excellent  reason  for  it,  in  the  fact  that 
Fields  had  already  done  so  for  himself  in  his 
"  Yesterdays  with  Authors."  That  Fields's 
name  should  have  been  omitted  in  the  index 
to  "Nathaniel  Hawthorne  and  his  Wife,"  may 
have  been  an  oversight;  but,  at  all  events, 
it  is  too  microscopic  a  matter  to  deserve  con 
sideration  in  a  first-class  review. 

Are  we  become  such  babies,  that  it  is  no 
longer  possible  for  a  writer  to  tell  the  plain, 
ostensible  truth  concerning  human  nature,  with 
out  having  a  storm  raised  about  his  head  for 
it?  George  P.  Bradford  and  Martin  F.  Tupper 
are  similar  instances,  and  like  Boswell  have 
suffered  the  penalty  which  accrues  to  men  of 
small  stature  for  associating  with  giants. 


29  449 


APPENDIX   C 

The  great  poets  and  other  writers  of  all  na 
tions  whom  I  conceive  to  be  superior  to  Haw 
thorne,  may  be  found  in  the  following  list  : 
Homer,  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides,  Pin 
dar,  Thucydides,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Demosthenes, 
Theocritus,  Plutarch;  Horace,  Virgil,  Cicero, 
Tacitus;  Dante,  Tasso,  Petrarch;  Cervantes, 
Calderon,  Camoens;  Moliere,  Racine,  Descartes, 
Voltaire;  Lessing,  Goethe,  Schiller,  Kant; 
Swedenborg;  Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  Bacon, 
Milton,  and  perhaps  Burns  and  Byron;  Alex 
ander  Hamilton,  Napoleon. 

These  also  may  be  placed  more  on  an  equality 
with  Hawthorne,  although  there  will  of  course 
always  be  wide  differences  of  opinion  on  that 
point:  Hesiod,  Herodotus,  Menander,  Aristo- 
phases;  Livy,  Caesar,  Lucretius,  Juvenal;  Ari- 
osto,  Macchiavelli,  Manzoni,  Lope  de  Vega, 
Buthas  Pato;  Corneille,  Pascal,  Rousseau; 
Wieland,  Klopstock,  Heine,  Auerbach;  Spen 
ser,  Ben  Jonson,  Fletcher,  Fielding,  Pope,  Scott, 
Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Carlyle,  Browning,  Ten 
nyson,  .  Froude ;  Webster,  Emerson,  Wasson. 
Sappho,  Bion,  Moschus,  and  Cleanthes  were 
certainly  poets  of  a  high  order,  but  only  some 
fragments  of  their  poetry  have  survived.  Gott 
fried  of  Strassburg,  the  Minnesinger,  might 
be  included,  and  some  of  the  finest  English 
poetry  was  written  by  unknown  geniuses  of 

450 


APPENDIX  C 

the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  Ballads 
like  "Chevy  Chace"  and  the  "Child  of  Elle" 
deserve  a  high  place  in  the  rank  of  poetry; 
and  the  German  "Reineke  Fuchs"  is  in  its  way 
without  a  rival.  There  may  be  other  French, 
German,  and  Spanish  writers  of  exceptional 
excellence  with  whom  I  am  unacquainted, 
but  I  do  not  feel  that  any  French  or  German 
novelists  of  the  last  century  ought  to  be  placed 
on  a  level  with  Hawthorne — only  excepting 
Auerbach.  Victor  Hugo  is  grandiloquent,  and 
the  others  all  have  some  serious  fault  or  limita 
tion.  I  suppose  that  not  one  in  ten  of  Emer 
son's  readers  has  ever  heard  of  Wasson,  but  he 
was  the  better  prose  writer  of  the  two,  and 
little  inferior  as  a  poet.  More  elevated  he  could 
not  be,  but  more  profound,  just,  logical  and 
humane — that  is,  more  like  Hawthorne.  Emerson 
could  not  have  filled  his  place  on  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  and  the  North  American  Review. 


45i 


Ind 


ex 


PAGE 

Adams,  John   Quincy 75 

After-dinner  speeches 283 

Alcott,   A.    Bronson 169,  193,  256,  387 

"  Ambitious  Guest,  The," in 

"  Ancestral   Footstep,  The," 395 

Antinous  of  the  villa  Ludovisi 332 

"Arabella/'    the    ship 17 

Arnold,    Matthew 279 

"  Artist  of  the  Beautiful,  The," 190 

Athenaean    Society 65 

Atlantic  Club 381 

Aurelius,   Marcus 108 

Bacon's,  Miss,  volume  published 301 

Balzac    431 

Bancroft,    George 135 

Beethoven   423 

Bennoch,  Francis 305,  353 

"  Blithedale  Romance  " 128,  146,  247,  368 

Blodgett's  boarding-house     291 

"Bloody    Footstep  " 390 

"  Birth  Mark,  The," 181 

"  Bosom  Serpent,  The," 184 

Bradford,  George   P 143,  151,  449 

Brandes,  Danish  critic 106,  427 

Bridge,  Horatio, 

63,  66,  86,  91,  94,  125,  175,  202,  272,  285,  396 

Bright,  Henry  A 353,  397,  406 

Brook    Farm 148,  195,  248 

Brown,    John 442 

Browning  and   Carlyle 109 

Browning,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Barrett 277 

Browning,    Robert 321 

Buchanan,   President    286,  292 

453 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Carlyle  and  Hawthorne 86 

Castor  and  Pollux,  statues  of 310 

"  Celestial  Railroad,  The," i  ,i; 

Cenci,  Beatrice,  portrait  of 337,  363 

Channing,   Ellery ^4,  170 

Channing,  William  H 421 

Cilley  and  Graves  duel 100 

Cilley,   Jonathan 63,  83,     88 

description    of 98 

Clarke,  Edward  H 411 

Clarke,  Rev.  Dr.  James  F 154,  420 

"  Code  of  Honor,"  the 101 

College   skepticism 425 

Columbia,  statue  of 330 

Concord    River 157 

Conway,  Rev.  M.  D 124,  166,  366,  438 

Crab  spider,  the 391 

Crawford,   sculptor .- 363,  340 

"  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  The," 194 

Curtis,  George  William 163 

Dallas,  George  M 292 

Dante's    Inferno 134 

Dickens    124,  432 

"  Doctor  Grimshawe's  Secret  " 389 

Dolliver,    Dr 412 

"  Dolliver   Romance,   The," 410,  412 

Donatello's  crime 370 

D  wight,  John  S.,  musical  critic 150 

Elgin    marbles 335 

Eliot,    George 224,  357 

Emerson   147,  149,  161,  165 

essays     168,  239,  438 

Emerson,  Mrs.  R.  W 439 

her   figure 439 

religious    views 441 

English    lakes 288 

"  English    Note-book," 304 

454 


INDEX 

PAGE 

English   scenery 280 

Essex  County  people 3 

Evans,  Marian •   357 

"  Fancy's   Show  Box  " 198 

"  Fanshawe  "    80,  172 

"  Faun  of  Praxiteles  " 323,  364 

"  Felton,  Septimius," 394 

Fielding 432 

Fields,  James  T 219,  448 

Florentine    art 321 

Fourier I39»  T48 

Fuller,  Margaret 161,  193,  194 

as    Zenobia 250,  251 

her    marriage 351,  448 

Gardner,  E.  A.,  Prof 334 

Genius,  its  growth 77 

"  Gentle  Boy,  The," 118 

Ghosts    161 

Gibson,   sculptor 312 

his  tinted  Eves  and  Venuses 343 

Gladstone,  William  E.,  on  transcendentalism 192,  406 

Godkin,   E.   L 34 

Goethe 189,  375 

Golden  Age,  A 371 

Goodrich,  S.  G.,  editor 88,  90,     95 

"  Great  Carbuncle,  The," 112 

"  Great  Stone  Face,  The," 242 

Guilty  glimpses  at  hired  models 342 

Gurney,  Prof.  E.  W 418 

"  Hall  of  Fantasy,  The," 189 

Harris,  Dr.  William  T IQ3 

Harvard  Law  School 403 

Hathorne,   Daniel 28 

Hathorne,   John 23 

witches'    j  udge 26 

his  last  will 26 

his   gravestone 27 

455 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Hathorne,  Joseph 28 

Hathorne,   Nathaniel 30 

Hathorne,    William 20 

Letter  to  British  Ministry 22 

Hawthorne,    Elizabeth 87 

Hawthorne,    Julian 120,  205,  215,  257,  405,  407,  418 

Hawthorne,    Louisa 43 

her    death 262 

Hawthorne,  Mrs.  Sophia  Peabody 120 

becomes  engaged  to  Hawthorne. 132 

writes  to  her  mother 210 

encourages  her  husband 216 

praises  her  husband 232 

is  out  of  health 283 

goes  to  Madeira 289 

is  presented  at  court 290 

the  original  of  Hilda 366 

at  Concord 383 

her    opinions 4°5 

character  and  style 443 

Ha^vthorne,  Nathaniel, 

his    English    ancestors 19 

family    name 32 

birthplace    o5 

his    lameness 40 

early   poetry 42 

life  at  Sebago 44 

his   first   diary 48 

the  budding  of  his  genius 51 

fits   for   college 54 

"Pin    Society" 55 

religious    instruction 57 

decides  on  his  vocation 58 

has  the  measles 61 

his  life  at  Bowdoin 65 

outdoor   sports 7° 

is  fined  for  gambling 72 

graduates  at  Bowdoin 76 

decides  his  profession 79 

456 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  continued. 

publishes  "  Fanshawe  " 80 

changes  his  name 82 

despondency  84 

goes  to  Lake  Champlain 89 

wins  his  bet  with  Cilley 93 

commences  his  diary 97 

his  supposed  challenge 102 

thanks    Longfellow 115 

goes  to  Berkshire  Hills 127 

character  of  his  diary 129 

his  engagement 132 

enters   Custom  House     135 

goes  to  Brook  Farm 141 

his    marriage 154 

his  true  Arcadia 160 

his    skating 164 

opinion  of  Emerson 167 

birth  of  a  daughter 174 

his   indolence 175 

style  as  an  author 189 

returns  to  Robert  Manning's  house 203 

is  appointed  Surveyor  of  the  Port 203 

son  Julian  is  born 205 

occupies  house  on  Mall  street 209 

is  removed  from  office 213 

publishes   "  Scarlet   Letter  " 219 

method  of  development 227 

sits  for  his  portrait ;  goes  to  Lenox 230 

publishes  "  House  of  Seven  Gables  " 239 

birth  of  his  daughter  Rose 240 

leaves  Lenox  for  Newton 254 

returns    to    Concord 257 

writes  the  "  Life  of  Pierce  " 258 

the  Liverpool  consulate 266 

sails  for  England 267 

as  an  office-holder 271 

his  life  in  England 276 

makes  a  speech 283 

457 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  continued. 

kindness  to  Delia  Bacon 300 

resigns  the  Consulate 302 

as  a  law  writer 303 

goes   to    Paris 308 

arrives  at  Rome 308 

journeys  to  Florence 314 

goes  to  the  Vatican 333 

on  modern  sculpture 341 

returns  to  Rome 345 

visits  Geneva 353 

summer  at  Redcar 354 

publishes  the  "  Marble  Faun  " 356 

Hawthorne  the  famous 376 

begins  to  dislike  writing 377 

returns  to  Concord 378 

method  of  writing 384 

""""  patriotism    385 

proposes  to  arm  negroes 386 

preparatory    sketches 388 

sojourns  at  Beverly  Farms 392 

last  entry  in  his  journal 402 

. dedicates  book  to  President  Pierce 406 

at   home 408 

personal    appearance 4°9 

seriously  ill 410 

Hawthorne's    philosophy 4T5 

his  death 418 

his  funeral 42° 

religious    convictions 421,  426 

his  position  in  literature 428 

Hawthorne,  Rose,  her  birth 240 

her  memoirs 3J5 

Hawthorne's   mother 3° 

her  character 37>  38 

her   death 217 

Hawthorne,  Una,  her  birth 174 

severe  illness  of 346,  394 

Hilda,  character  of 373 

458 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Hilda,  continued. 

her    tower 375 

Hillard,   George    S 133,  172,  217,  218 

Hoar,  Miss  Elizabeth 161,  165 

Holiday    epauletes 260 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell 133,  4i6 

Hosmer,  Harriet 350 

Houghton,   Lord 411 

"  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  The," 233,  368 

Howe,  Dr.  Samuel  G 163 

Hunt,  suicide  of  Miss 169 

Italian    Note-book 33° 

Jackson,   Andrew 75,  100 

James,  Henry,  Jr 382 

James,  Henry,  Sr 382 

Jameson,  Mrs.  Anna .5*  314,  329 

Jerrold,   Douglas ^ 295 

Kansas-Nebraska  Bill 273 

Kant,    Immanuel I91 

Kemble,    Frances 231,  244 

Kitridge,  Doctor 41 

"  Lady  Eleanor's  Mantle  " 1 1 1 

Laocoon    334 

Lathrop,  George  P 48,  389 

Leamington     288 

Lincoln,    President 397 

Liverpool    Consulate 269 

Longfellow,  Henry  W 46,  64,  83 

reviews    Hawthorne 104,  362 

Loring,   Frederick   W 229 

Loring,  Dr.  George  B 207,  404 

Lowell,  James  Russell 196 

Mann,  Horace 246,  255 

Mann,  Mrs.  Horace 118 

Manning  family 31 

459 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Manning,  Rebecca 38,  205 

Manning,    Richard 44 

Manning,  Robert 37,  43,  53 

"  Marble  Faun,  The,"  English  reviews  of 359 

analysis    of 362 

its   original 368 

McClellan,  General  George  B 396 

McMichael,    Morton 293 

Melville,  Hermann 245 

Mexican    War 176,  211 

Michel   Angelo 318,  320 

his  Last  Judgment  and  Moses 336 

"  Miroir,  Monsieur  du  " 174,  180 

"  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse  " 173 

Motley's    opinions 359,  391 

"  Mrs.   Bullfrog  " 174,  180 

Niagara  Falls,  visit  to in 

North  American  Review 104 

Nurse,  Rebecca,  a  witch 25 

Offensive    partisanship 214 

"  Old  Manse,"  the 156,  158 

"  Ontario   Steamboat,  The," 112 

O'Sullivan,  an  editor 203,  282 

"  Our  Old  Home  " 405 

Parker,    Theodore 258 

Peabody,    Elizabeth 39,  H7»  HQ,  141,  212 

Peabody,  Sophia  Amelia 120 

Philadelphia   Hock   Club 293 

Pickard,  Samuel  T 49,  445 

Pierce,  Franklin 62,  68,  83 

elected    Senator 93,  202 

goes  to  the  war 208 

nominated  for   President 257,  259 

his   father 259 

various     275,  292,  302,  349,  417 

Pike,  William  B 207 

460 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Poetic  mind,  the 424 

Politicians,  opinion  of 139 

Portraits  of  Hawthorne  by  Osgood,  Healy,  Rowse,  and 

others  433 

Positivists  197 

Powers,  Hiram 316,  317 

his  America 327,  350 

Prescott,  George  L 161 

Prince  of  Wales 348 

Pyncheon,  Clifford 235 

Quakers,  persecution  of 21 

Raphael's  Transfiguration 331 

"  Rappacini's    Daughter  " 183 

Reform  Club  of  London 295 

Ripley,    George 140,  145,  148,  152,  248 

Rock    Ferry 269 

Roman  Carnival 348 

Runnel,  Mary,  sweetheart  of  Daniel  Hathorne 326 

Ruskin    328 

Sailors    maltreated 287 

Salem  architecture 12 

Salem,  situation  of 1 1 

Salem   society. 209 

Salem's    sea-captains 14 

Sanborn,  Frank  B.,  attempt  to  kidnap 378, 

"  Scarlet  Letter,  The," 204,  218, 

Schonbach,  A.  E.,  German  critic 427 

"  Select  Party,  The," 185,  198 

Shakespeare,  authorship  of 300 

Epitaph    302 

Shaw,  Chief  Justice 15 

Shelley 189 

Sheridan's    Ride 312 

"  Sights  from  a  Steeple  " 114 

Silsbee,    Edward 306,  311 

Sistine    Chapel 336 

461 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Skepticism  of  evil 106 

Slavery  Question 260 

"  Snow   Image  " 240 

Spartan   discipline 137 

Story,  William  W 310 

St.  Petersburg  Venus 352 

Sumner  and   Motley 349 

Sumner,    Charles 200,  354 

Swartwout's    defalcation 131 

Symms,  William,  a  mulatto 47,  445 

"  Tanglewood  Tales  " 266 

Taylor,  President 211 

Thoreau  163 

of  marriage 169,  193 

Ticknor,  W.  D.,  death  of 417 

Tituba,  the  Aztec 25 

Tragedy,  character  of 367 

Trance  medium,  a 325 

Transcendentalism  191 

essence  of 198 

Tupper,  Martin  Farquhar 280 

Turner,  J.  M.  W 285 

"  Twice  Told  Tales  " 96,  108 

"  Unpardonable  Sin,  The," 243 

Upham,  the  historian 20,  236 

Vanity  of  Women 171 

Vasari 332 

Venus  de  Medici 3J8 

"  Vicar  of  Wakefield  " 223 

Victor   Hugo 43* 

Villa   Manteiito 316 

"  Virtuoso's  Collection,  The," 188 

"  Vision  at  the  Fountain,  The," 198 

Ward's  Tavern 71 

Warwick    Castle 356 

462 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Wasson,  David  A 193,  422 

Waters,  Henry  F.,  researches  of 18 

Wayside,   The 256 

Webster,    Daniel 135,  206 

West  Roxbury  commune 152 

Whittier,  the  poet 17 

Wig  Castle  in  Wigton 18 

Witchcraft  persecution 15,  24 

Wood,    Warrington 341 

Worcester,  Doctor,  the  lexicographer 54 

"  Young  Goodman  Brown  " 181 


463 


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